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Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper?

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  Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? themattfella <themattfella@xyyzzz.com> - 2013-03-29 01:43 -0500
    Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-03-28 23:49 -0700
    Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-03-29 18:13 -0700
      Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-03-30 08:34 -0700
      Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? themattfella <themattfella@xyyzzz.com> - 2013-03-31 22:52 -0500
        Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-03-31 21:00 -0700
        Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? Joerg Meier <joergmmeier@arcor.de> - 2013-04-01 16:14 +0200
        Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-04-01 08:53 -0700
          Re: Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper? Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-04-01 10:44 -0700

#2627 — Still Relevant: Original Gosling/McGilton Java White Paper?

I am learning Java and have found the original White Paper by Gosling 
and McGilton.

I find it very readable.

Is it still a good starting point to learn Java?

I already know C and C++.

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#2628

On Fri, 29 Mar 2013 01:43:17 -0500, themattfella
<themattfella@xyyzzz.com> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

>I am learning Java and have found the original White Paper by Gosling 
>and McGilton.
>
>I find it very readable.
>
>Is it still a good starting point to learn Java?
>
>I already know C and C++.

Even a essay on Java 1.0 would throw you off . The completely redid
the way events work, leaving the old way as  a legacy.

I would have a look at http://mindprod.com/jgloss/gettingstarted.html
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Motors make noise, and that tells you about the feelings and attitudes 
that went into it. Something was more important than sensory pleasure -- 
nobody would invent a chair or dish that smelled bad or that made horrible 
noises -- why were motors invented noisy? How could they possibly be 
considered complete or successful inventions with this glaring defect?
Unless, of course, the aggressive, hostile, assaultive sound actually served
to express some impulse of the owner. 
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 85)
The Wayward Gate: Science and the Supernatural

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#2632

themattfella wrote:
> I am learning Java and have found the original White Paper by Gosling 
> and McGilton.

I am not familiar with that paper. Have you a line?

> I find it very readable.
> 
> Is it still a good starting point to learn Java?

If by "original" you mean circa 1996, then no.

> I already know C and C++.

Those will start you well but confuse you thoroughly if you aren't cognizant of the differences.

Knowing those languages is only a help if knowing assembler is also a help to you.

Or LISP.

Real programmers pick up on languages pretty quickly, and the commonality between 
programming languages helps them.

Less adept practitioners get hung up on why language Y doesn't do things the same way as 
Language X.

I would start with the Java tutorials on the Oracle website and work from there.

Also search for Java tutorials.

Don't bother learning any version prior to Java 5.

-- 
Lew

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#2635

On Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:13:12 -0700 (PDT), Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>Less adept practitioners get hung up on why language Y doesn't do things the same way as 
>Language X

In particular C and Java arrays look superficially alike, but they
work quite differently. If you assume there is any commonality you
will be baffled.  See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/array.html
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Motors make noise, and that tells you about the feelings and attitudes 
that went into it. Something was more important than sensory pleasure -- 
nobody would invent a chair or dish that smelled bad or that made horrible 
noises -- why were motors invented noisy? How could they possibly be 
considered complete or successful inventions with this glaring defect?
Unless, of course, the aggressive, hostile, assaultive sound actually served
to express some impulse of the owner. 
~ Philip Slater (born: 1927 age: 85)
The Wayward Gate: Science and the Supernatural

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#2637

On 03/29/2013 08:13 PM, Lew wrote:
> I would start with the Java tutorials on the Oracle website and work from there.

Yes, I found http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html, and it's 
pretty bad.  Not what I would call textbook quality.

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#2638

themattfella wrote:
> Lew wrote:
>> I would start with the Java tutorials on the Oracle website and work from there.
> 
> Yes, I found http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html, and it's 
> pretty bad.  Not what I would call textbook quality.

Well, at least they'll have accurate information. And different tutorials go into 
different depth. Have you read them all?

IBM's Developerworks site has a Java tree that is just full of useful stuff.

Read _Effective Java_ by Joshua Bloch. Study it.

Also there is much useful material at 
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Java+introduction

-- 
Lew

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#2639

On Sun, 31 Mar 2013 22:52:33 -0500, themattfella wrote:

> On 03/29/2013 08:13 PM, Lew wrote:
>> I would start with the Java tutorials on the Oracle website and work from there.
> Yes, I found http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html, and it's 
> pretty bad.  Not what I would call textbook quality.

I found the Sun/Oracle tutorials to be very helpful and of an unusually
high quality.

Liebe Gruesse,
		Joerg

-- 
Ich lese meine Emails nicht, replies to Email bleiben also leider
ungelesen.

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#2640

On 3/31/2013 8:52 PM, themattfella wrote:
> On 03/29/2013 08:13 PM, Lew wrote:
>> I would start with the Java tutorials on the Oracle website and work
>> from there.
>
> Yes, I found http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html, and it's
> pretty bad.  Not what I would call textbook quality.

The tutorials themselves are not what I would call pedagogical.  They're 
not really great at teaching.  They do make an excellent reference and 
have great examples for when you want specifics.

If you need to learn from the beginning, getting a beginners book is a 
good idea.  So is taking a class.  That's what I did.  You can learn by 
doing, but I find this frustrating because you're constantly running 
into walls where you don't know how to accomplish basic goals, and 
you're constantly aware that your initial efforts are sub-standard.

For books, I recommend O'Reilly's Learning Java, third edition.  The 
WROX series is also good.  There's the javapassion.com online website 
where you can take courses.  I found them to be really well organized 
and useful for getting yourself over the initial learning hump.  I 
really hate fumbling around and only half knowing what I'm doing, so an 
organized online class worked very well for me.

There's also local community colleges, and you could get a group 
together of interested parties to all learn the language together.  This 
group can help a bit with the latter.  If you post up programs you have 
written, you can often get useful critiques about different ways to 
accomplish your goals.

Good luck.

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#2641

markspace wrote:
> There's also local community colleges, and you could get a group  
> together of interested parties to all learn the language together.  This 

Some years ago I got together with a bunch of programmers to teach ourselves
Java Enterprise (J2EE back then). We met for eight weeks, about six or eight in a 
group, and gave each other homework. It was effective, at least for me.

> group can help a bit with the latter.  If you post up programs you have 
> written, you can often get useful critiques about different ways to 
> accomplish your goals.

You can do that here on clj.help or, for more advanced questions, 
clj.programmer.

You'll get some fine, rigorous reviews here.

-- 
Lew

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