Advice from professionals to anm amatuer

Question

Hi everyone I hope you are all had a good Christmas and new years eve.
So my profession is civil engineering (Highways, infrastructure, structures etc.) and not software engineering but I have spent years learning java in my own time and passed the SCJP back in 2010 (I found it a great tool to guide me on what to learn and make myself learn things I might not have otherwise). I find java a very useful tool for work and studies (including my final year independant study for my degree).
Even though I'm a self taught amatuer I am well aware there is a difference between knowing the fundamentals of Java and knowing how to put together a solid piece of software and although I have got by ok so far I would like to take my skills to the next level.
I did have in my mind to do the Java SE 6 Developer after I passed SCJP 6 but of course Oracle bought out Sun and brought in mandatory Oracle training as part of the requirements. Although I would be happy to do the training realistically I can't afford or justify the training off my own back but I did like the sound of the [Developing Applications With the Java SE 6 Platform|http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=609&p_org_id=28&lang=US&get_params=dc:D61860GC10,p_preview:N] training because not only does it look like it covers the stuff for the Developer certification (incase I decided to do it), but it would cover the right stuff to better my skills.
I've looked all over the place for similar resources such as books but haven't been able to find anything too convincing. I know I can't realistically get real world experience to learn some of these important skills so my question is does anyone know of any books or resoureces which could help someone like me? Give me guidance of best practices for building good quality java software?
Thank you.

Answer 1

We'll here's my two cents worth:
Broadly speaking, there is desktop development and web based development (there are others). I think the market for jobs in web based development is much larger and I would recommend that route rather than desktop development. As I understand it, web development is roughly divided into browser based applications and various mobile device applications. I'm a browser developer and I'm only going to talk about that.
There are countless frameworks in use for browser based application development. I would suggest you stick with the most commonly used ones and not ones that few have heard of (especially employers). Some of the technologies you should eventually get familiar with is: JSP, JSF, Servlets, JDBC, Hibernate, JPA, Struts, Spring, Ant, Maven, JEE6 stack, XML, Web Services, etc. You may want to read up on what these technologies accomplish before deciding which you want to read up on in detail.
Some of these technologies are old (JSP and Struts to name two), but countless programs have been written in them and you will probably sooner or later (more likely sooner) get a job where you will have to debug and enhance them. Since you don't appear to have web experience and if you consider taking that route, I suggest you get a book on JSP/Servlets, and read on-line about JDBC. Create a web application that reads data from a database table, displays it, and allows the user to update the data using MVC design (a lot of web applications are based on filling out forms). Add validation. Then, refactor the project over and over to get it looking professional. Once you get that down pat, I suggest going onto JSF. Eventually you may want to get into Spring (I would avoid Struts), but that's an advanced topic for a later day.
I've read many books on various technologies over the years have haven't come across any that takes you step by step on setting up a complete best-practices professional web application from scratch with just about every service you typically need. I suppose no one does so because each new web application requirement is unique enough that authors prefer not to give one design example whereas there are countless services and configurations of services. Also, their example probably wil become obsolete soon enough.
Lastly, and most importantly:
kith.org/jimmosk/disclaimer2.html