New Java for Beginners YouTube Series

[Cd Hill]

Hi guys figured i'd post this here for those that may find it useful, I'm a relatively small YouTuber that has started a series on Java for Beginners, hoping these will help someone out at some point.
Below is a link to my Java Playlist, Hope these can be of use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QlTsVON_8w&list=PL_SIizilB8b8llCq5vgdSYjQJG3vVkJmP&index=1

-Chill

[Liutauras Vilda]

First, welcome to the Ranch.

Thanks for the videos. I have some comments to you, so don't take them personally, but rather as a consideration for improvement.

Java 002 - First Java Program
1. You don't pay attention to program's formatting, and showing all sort of poor, inconsistent formatting. That is a really bad way of starting. Students remember these things and pick up bad habits from the beginning, as they think formatting isn't important. Same applies to indentation. These must be right, and right from the beginning. No excuse otherwise.

i.e.:
a) before opening curly bracket you don't put space - against Java coding style convention
b) public static void main (Strin[] ...) - before method parameters parenthese shouldn't be added space, again, against Java coding style convention
c) other video have inconsistent formatting, in one place one way, in another - another way. That is a worst case scenario.

2. Later you say every line that you finish, you need to place ";" (semi-colon) - that's wrong. Every statement you finish, not the line. I.e.: you don't add semi-colon after class declaration, in fact - you don't need to.

3. You say if class name doesn't match file name, it won't compile - that's not entirely true. Class name and filename must match if the class is declared as public, otherwise - not.

So, these are comments from the first short program video.

Try to look for some more rich ways of introducing concepts. For instance same HelloYoutube you could have written in object oriented way rather than procedural as majority of these kind of tutorials demonstrate.

You could have shown class declared as final, so the students would know that is the right way of declaring classes, unless otherwise needed.

-------------
If will have time, will have a look at other videos the other day.

[Liutauras Vilda]

Looked at other your video, named "Java 003 - Variables".

1. Class names, you could name them somehow more descriptive rather than YouTube3, so the students could train themselves how to name classes based on the information they carry, which names make sense, which not, does the name needs to be a noun or verb... It is important.

2. After the class declaration, have an empty line before you declare a method. Again, no need to cram all code so it would occupy as least space as possible.

3. You say, that user will encounter 4 primitive types in Java. Actually it is only half of what Java has. There are also byte, short, long, boolean.

4. At the end of this video you say: "this is pretty much how you declare variables". That is not precise. That is how you initialize variables. Declaration is when you define a type but don't assign a value. If you declare and assign a value on the same line, that means you initialize it.

5. There are no information about how large values for instance int, double types can store.

6. Are you planning to explain about the instance variables, class's variables?

[Liutauras Vilda]

Java 004 - Math Operators and Concatenation
---------------------------------------------------

1. Don't declare multiple variables on the same line, i.e. int x, y, z, that is a poor practice and not recommended, especially for beginners. These videos are targeted to them it seems.

2. Around operators always have an empty space. Don't write several statements on the same line.

Not
int x=2;y=4;z=6

but
x = 2;
y = 4;
z = 6;

3. Again, very inconsistent formatting.

This video is very broad. I missed information what would happen if you'd write "sum = " + 4 + 3 since you were talking about the concatenation.

[Liutauras Vilda]

I see you uploaded several other videos, you are fast. My suggestion would be to create them at a slower pace, but with a higher quality in mind.

Remember, students are meant to watch them and learn from them. Much better if they learn from a good quality videos (note: not the video quality, but content).

Or if you are more interested in the quantity, consider mentioning that you are beginner and trying to learn that way by coding and making videos, so you could progress over the time together with your audience.

[Cd Hill]

Thank you for your critiques, its been a couple of years since playing with and learning Java, i'll have to focus a bit more on my formatting and a rectify a few of my mistakes. I learned through YouTube and a basic OOP Class, and may have picked up some bad habits. I will be recording a video on naming conventions i.e. Camel case and class naming in a future video, and perhaps a formatting tutorial.

-Chill

[Liutauras Vilda]

You are welcome.

Agree, youtube (and not just it) is full of less than optimum quality content. So, whenever possible, we need to try to improve it as much as we can.
I'm glad that you accept critique and more importantly, willing to address these in a near future.

Will be happy to see those once they available. In the meantime, you get thumb up for the positiveness

One more thing. I do understand the importance of promoting the channel, however, an advice, try not to post on several forum places an youtube link just for the sake of promoting, that applies to all forums on the Net. If the videos would be of a high quality, the promotion would happen automatically, through the recommendations by students, community members, etc. Quality I think is one of the key elements in success, especially when nowadays more stuff is of a poor quality than good.

I'd be glad to see tutorial about the formatting you mentioned, variables naming. I don't think I saw any of these in youtube videos.