Learning java with no programming language experience, where to start? - Page 5

SlowHabit · #41 10-11-2007, 07:02 PM

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mmbt,

When I went to school at Rice (class of '93), Scheme was used in a bunch of comp sci classes, apparently because it taught good conceptual programming practices.

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I thought Scheme was the best at teaching conceptual programming practices. Then I learned Java and thought Scheme was a piece of shiet. After a while, I changed my mind and decided that Scheme is the best.

tshort · #42 10-11-2007, 07:12 PM

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t,

I was gonna play with python to scrape data off of websites and into a db or excel file. Good language for that, or would I be better off to try something else?

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Python would definitely be good. Ruby might be better, but I haven't really used it.

Python is a good language for parsing and Dive Into Python has some sections on HTML / XML parsing. You could Google "parser python xml" and the work has been done for you.

I used yacc a few years ago for parsing configuration files, but there should be better scripts available for XML, HTML parsing.

At one point, I took a script someone wrote for accessing Gmail and was trying to automatically import my tourney results to an excel spreadsheet. I know there are scripts out there for working with Excel. As always, don't try to duplicate work someone else has made freely available (unless you want the exercise).

mmbt0ne · #43 10-11-2007, 07:49 PM

Yeah, but the thing is, I have no idea how to do any of it. So, I'd rather learn how to code it somehow before just taking someone else's and then trying to fight through it that way.

skunkworks · #44 10-11-2007, 08:42 PM

I'm guessing you're working with some sort of Java-based plugin application. How complex will your code be? What sorts of tasks will it be used for?

JoseRijo · #45 10-12-2007, 01:11 PM

I learned Java from Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java: http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/

It's a free ebook, but it's good enough to buy a hard copy.

You need to practice in order to learn a programming language. One way to get your feet wet is by modifying existing programs. Maybe there's some bugs or simple features that you can tackle at work.

Isura · #46 10-13-2007, 02:55 PM

I'll also add that Code Complete 2 (1 is good too, but a bit dated) is an excellent book on programming concepts, and isn't too language dependent.

dogdrool · #47 10-13-2007, 07:33 PM

Much of this thread is a fairly informed yet meaningless comparison of programming languages. There's little value in making absolute value statements about particular programming languages.

Scheme sucks? It's more accurate to say that you had little luck using it in your Introduction to Computer Science course.

The OP can increase his effectiveness at work if he's able to write some software in Java. Unfortunately he doesn't know how to write software, and he also doesn't know Java. Those are two separate problems -- the first much bigger than the second.

If you're serious and committed, the best course of action is to address the problems separately. First spend some time learning to program in any language. Better yet, learn to program in several languages. There are many books that walk you through problems and show how they can be solved with computer programs. Make sure you type in (not copy and paste) every single line of code, and actually run the code.

Once you have written several programs, then you can pick up any introduction to java book to accomplish the particular task that you're doing at work.

If you don't take these two separate steps, you will likely never advance beyond a rough understanding of Java's syntax.

WhiteWolf · #48 10-13-2007, 07:40 PM

Check out the "Core Java" series - these should be excellent for you. Volume I will be more than enough to get you started. Volume II covers some more advanced topics, which you may not need, so you can hold off on getting that.

ArturiusX · #49 10-14-2007, 12:11 AM

I have programmed a little bit before, while I was at school. Visual Basic kind of stuff. I understand the basic idea behind programming. But you're probably right, to get better, I'll probably need to true immerse myself in programming.

jaydub · #50 10-14-2007, 12:40 AM

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I have programmed a little bit before, while I was at school. Visual Basic kind of stuff. I understand the basic idea behind programming. But you're probably right, to get better, I'll probably need to true immerse myself in programming.

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Well, if you want an answer to your problem, you need to elaborate. It's possible a Java for dummies is all you need, after all your goal is not to become a software engineer. It may be that all you need to do is get a sufficient understanding of Java so that you can type in some basic, static code to work with the system. If that's all you need, [censored] OO, damn sure [censored] all this functional nonsense (ml is the new scheme and ruby is for fanboys but it's far better than the perl fandom and slightly better than the subsequent python fandom so I don't hate), and just learn a bit of syntax.

J