Hi, I'm Dan

Question

Greetings everyone,
I'm Daniel Walker and figured the best place to start with Java is an introduction to the community..
A little about me- I'm pretty much a novice in the Java world just getting started with learning it after a great period of time learning and using php and deciding this is the route to pursue, I came to this conclusion based on a few lines of thought and your opinion on them would be nice.
My life of programming began with actionscript 2.0, basic timeline junk at first which then evolved into more complex OOP development, whilst it was a great experience and taught me a lot I always felt lacked a real place on the web (not being content friendly) and always craved something a bit more.. raw? I then began learning AS3 and continued stuffing my head full of good application design methods and functionality until I let this fall aside and turned my attention to PHP. A great and well versed language but one I still feels lacks true power (I think this notion is built on the idea that the language was built on the web). Another impacting thought was that I know Java is a world class, highly respected language with a long history and over the past few years has really had a chance to shine. So after looking at the pros and cons of each I decided whilst they say Java is a tough loanguage I'd much rather invest the time in getting that right, developing some truly kick ass highly scalable apps and being proud of a worthy pay off from a good days work.
My Primary focus is in developing Web Apps with a keen interest in learning to develop for the desktop, regardles of my bad experiences with it, and to really truly master Java so that the transition to any other anguage (C++ or Python are likely next) this in mind how does everyone feel about my reasoning? is there a better alternative you'd reconmend I pursue? Please take into consideration that whilst I've learnt a fair bit I am in no way a professionaly trained or even heavily experienced programmer, and havent really mastered any language yet. I have few kung fu skills but a very clear definition of how and why the punches and kicks are thrown and land if that analogy makes any sense whatso'ever.
One pressing matter is that a lot of the books and hardcopy material I have to learn from is geared towards Java 1.1, The train of thought with these is that sure, they're not the latest and greatest but they're the basic, the essential and fundamental reference which it certainly cant help to get to grips with (and theyre free n already on my desk) should I continue with these or is there a drastic change in the later versions which you think I'd benefit from / the learning process would be easier with?
21 year old male, born & live in the UK, dont speak a second language though I'm learning japanese, bit of an artist, more or a philosopher, avid self teacher and quite a day dreamer.
Thanks to any responses and nice to meet you all!
Daniel Walker

Answer 1

Don't bother with JDK 1.1 books. Too much has changed, and you'll end up reading about awkward ways of doing things for which there are better modern alternatives. The first example that comes to mind is that using integer constants for enumerations is a bad practice now much better done with real enum support in the language.
I'd suggest learning languages with significant differences. Java is strongly typed and statically typed. Try a dynamically but strongly typed language like Python, and dynamically/weakly typed language like Perl. Try Lisp or Scheme. (Some great comp sci texts are in Scheme, and it's small and easy to learn.)
Java is an object-oriented language. You might want to try a plain procedural language, but I'm not sure that's necessary because there are plenty of procedural aspects to Java. I'd strongly urge you to try a functional language. Python has many functional aspects but it does a lot of things so the learning effect might not be as strong... Scheme is a good choice for functional.
In general, widely-used languages are going to have a mix of styles, so they might not be as good exercise as some academic languages. OTOH Python was originally designed as a learning language, as I understand it. At this point I think I'm just free-associating.
I guess my point is, don't try to master one language and move on to the next one. Mastery comes from experiencing multiple languages and thus multiple ways to approach a problem. Go ahead, learn Java, but try Python at the same time. Or Scheme (again with the Scheme). I haven't touched Scheme since college but I have a lot of fond memories of it.