where did you learn java?

[Danny Alphones]

please tell me where you guys learned java and how long it took you to get where you are now

[Campbell Ritchie]

University of Teesside for MSc course. Twelve years plus.

[Jesper de Jong]

I started programming Java when it was the new and hot thing in 1998. Before that time, websites consisted entirely of static text and images. With Java you could make interactive websites with applets, which was amazing at that time. (Applets are now totally outdated and nobody seriously makes applets anymore).

I started with it together with a colleague, just studying it by ourselves with a book that had a big star with the text "Covers Java version 1.0!" on it.

It didn't take very long (about a year) before the company I was working at had a Java department, where I together with that colleague worked on one of the first Java EE projects that we did at the company. I've been professionally working with Java since that time.

The learning never ends. There are many thousands of Java libraries and frameworks and new versions are coming out every year, and also technology is changing and evolving all the time so there's always something to learn.

[John Joe]

I only learn Java Programming in 3 months, which is one sem in University Technical Malaysia Malacca, located in Malaysia.

Now self- learning by referring Introduction to Java Programming, which was written by Daniel Liang.

[Junilu Lacar]

I started learning Java a few months before I signed up here on JavaRanch. I already was an experienced programmer so I actually started with a Java certification preparation book co-written by one of our sheriffs here, Michael Ernest. Then I picked up another book, Practical Java Programming Language Guide, written by Peter Haggar, another former staff member. Then I got Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java. By that time, I was supplementing a lot of my learning from reading posts here on the Ranch.  Again, because I already had a number of years of prior programming experience, it didn't take long to become conversant in Java, enough to pass the certification exam.  I've been working with Java since mid-2000 so that makes it about 17 years for me now, and I'm still learning more every day.

[Danny Alphones]

by the way John Joe i have seen your post earlier and wanted to ask one thing how much did the book help vs. the one semester at the university.

[Gabriëlle Pearce]

I started learning Java at home last year, I'm totally new to programming. I wanted to switch career so here I am. I enjoy learning new things and I can't wait to have my first Java certification soon and build up my career.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome to the Ranch

[Tapas Chand]

Started learning Java in an institute after I did my Mechanical Engineering.
Doing Java programming since 2010.

[John Joe]

Danny Alphones wrote:by the way John Joe i have seen your post earlier and wanted to ask one thing how much did the book help vs. the one semester at the university.

It's not enough if you just read the notes given by lecturer. There are a lot of exercise in this book and I believe it can level up your coding skill if you hardworking enough  

[Les Morgan]

Gabriëlle Pearce wrote:I started learning Java at home last year, I'm totally new to programming. I wanted to switch career so here I am. I enjoy learning new things and I can't wait to have my first Java certification soon and build up my career.

Gabrielle,

Learning Java is just adding a tool to your skills, programming on the other hand is a very different thing. Programming is an approach to problem solving. Please do not confuse the 2 of them. I know a lot of people that call themselves programmers that learned Java--some "professional level"--in reality they are what we used to call code monkeys. I give you the process I want created--the routine already worked out and really the programming already done--all they need do is hang the language. If you want to program, then study programming and not a language.

Of course to build anything you have to use tools. Implementation is always an exercise in using tools, so you need to be very familiar with the tools you choose. Most programmers I know have a half dozen or so languages they can use to implement solutions, not including various dialects of scripting for the web, usually you will work in a shop the specializes in a certain language, like Java, but the thing that moves the people along the career path is knowing how to program--solve the problems.  Keep that in mind.

Les

[Gabriëlle Pearce]

^ Thank you, but don't worry I'm not confusing them. You are not the first that told me that, but it's always good to hear it again. Have a great day!

[Bear Bibeault]

In 1998, I started a job that was my first web programming position. We started off using JHTML (the precursor to JSP) and Java. My previous two jobs had been writing Windows GUI programs in C++, so Java was brand new to me.

I learned Java from a popular book at the time¹ that, like most Java books at the time, spent about 10% of its volume on core Java, and the rest on AWT and Swing. What a colossal waste of time -- AWT and Swing have been 100% useless to me in the ensuing 19 years².

I still use Java for backend programming, but most of my code is JavaScript for the front end these days.



¹ I don't remember the specific name of the book, and I no longer own it. But I do remember it was published by Wrox Press.

² 19 years? 19 years?

[Les Morgan]

BTW: I started back in '98 or '99.  I had always worked in a Microsoft Shop, but at the time the Industry was suffering from a period specific MS ailment known as "DLL Hell". I like many of my contemporaries were searching for a way through or out of DLL Hell, and to our delight enters Sun and Java. Over the next two years, we did a complete retooling of our skillsets and became a Java shop, much to our local MS Evangelist's chagrin.

Our Java development was what I call "boring code". It was install and forget technology, our apps just laid on the servers and worked--no great excitement greeted us in the morning having to reboot the servers to get things running again, nor did we have to track down each user's accumulated dll footprint on their local box and adjust it to fit known acceptable releases! All we had to do was install the applications we developed and set off on new tasks. We could happily forget the already delivered products until changes were called for by the clients.

One such application we delivered and completely forgot about. It sat on the server running merrily for over a year and a half when the server crew called me and asked what it did because they were cleaning up apps in preparation to move to a new box.  My response was, "I don't know. Turn it off and we'll see who calls in." They shut it down and it wasn't more than 2 minutes and we had our answer.  We started it back up and documented who owned the app. Remarkability enough the app was a beta that the client never got back to us on. We entered into a dialog with the client just afterward and finalized the project.  A beta had run uninterrupted for a year and a half! A remarkable feat during that era of technology.  

Java solved our DLL Hell immediately.