learning java

Last time I looked (a couple of months ago) JDK 1.4.2 from Sun's website is _the_ Java compiler, and you can opt to download the free IDE (NetBeans) as well.

And as for books, I started with SAMs Teach yourself Java in 21 days, not great but gave me the grounding I needed for Java in a nutshell... although A lot of stuff I learned off the web, and by de-compiling other people's applets

[edited by - razza on January 29, 2004 8:24:50 AM]

As for books, "Thinking In Java", written by Bruce Eckel, available for free at his website, seems to be widely accepted as one of the best.

Also, the Java Tutorial is a nice ressource to learn about specific topics.

And finally, there''s the API docs.

Oh, and another thing, this site has some nice diagrams.

- Christoph

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Teamwork Software - Stuff That Does Something

Forget NetBeans, get JBuilder9 Personal or Eclipse.

API docs are better if you''d download them and use offline.
44 MB JSDK
42 MB docs
12 MB tutorial with pictures

I would try JCreator LE: easy and simple for start.
JEdit: fast compilation, and some nice plugins. Also it was able to open 84 MB file when IExplorer crashed.
Eclipse: widely used standard. Be carefull about your source tree and don''t delete it by accident as me. ~_^

Thank you for your assistance everyone. This will be very helpful in getting started.

One book I really liked when I was learning was On To Java. It''s really short for a computer book, nice and concise and to the point. Everything is broken up into these "points" which are like 2-sentence blocks. It''s a great way for understanding Java conceptually.

That, alongside the API docs should be pretty good to get you started.

The best book I have ever seen for learning Java is Beginning Java 2 by Ivor Horton. I've been using Java for years but I still refer to this book from time to time. THe latest version deals with the 1.4 SDK.

[edited by - aldacron on January 29, 2004 10:42:16 PM]