William said:
I am currently a college student working towards a BS in IT. I have
had 2 courses at this point injava, the current course is java 2. we
are using a textbook by Joyce Farrell, and i have purchased abother
just to try to get me going. My questions are these? Is there a
recommended text that really get down to the nitty gritty, one that
even the dumbest person inthe world can understand? I have decided
that i do like the challenge, but my experience level is killing me,
these courses are with the University of Phoenix online and they try
to teach java in 2 5 week courses. How much am i to expected to learn
in that amount of time?
There are two types of books: Books that teach you the API (which is
available online), and books that try to teach you how to program.
If you have the first type of book, then just see how they do certain
commons tasks, such as creating a swing gui, adding objects to it, and using
them. These books are pretty straight forward and are very easy to follow.
If you books gives sample code that begins with "import javax.swing.*;" then
you probably have this type of book. You will probably not need to get any
extra books as most of them cover the same stuff. You should spend a lot of
time reading the api and learning what objects work for certain situations
and how to use them as well.
If you have the second type of book, then I would recommend that you do
everything in the book. Also, you must understand how they do things, and
why they are done that way. You can tell if you have this type of book by
looking at what the chapters cover. If there is a section on recursion,
loops, data structures, trees, graphs, etc., then you have this type of
book. If you have this type of book, and you really want to learn the stuff,
I would recommend that instead of spending your money other more books, that
you "reinvent the wheel". You should take the time to read how a linked list
works, and then implement one yourself. Don't use any of the sample code
from the book. Instead, draw it out on paper first. Write what methods you
need, and how they will be done. Use that to help you code it. You will
later find out that when you have to write a program yourself, you won't
have a book to copy off of, and you would have never learned how to figure
stuff out. Once you get fairly good and figuring stuff out, spend time
reading through the api so you won't have to write your own objects every
time. Most programs are built from existing tools.
Instead you should saved your money and take your girlfriend out to dinner.
She's gonna miss you once you start getting deeper and deeper into this
stuff. Good luck.
