One Month to learn Java - Pointers and book suggestions needed

[Panarchy]

Hello

This is the sister article to my question on C++.

I've been told by some other people that java is a better language to learn for the kind of implementation needed.

Please don't close the other topic, or stop replying to the other topic, as both of these will be needed by me (though immediately this one!)

What I need, is to learn Java, within a month.

Any suggestions/pointers?

Thanks in advance for any replies,

Panarchy

[chili5]

Find a good book I suppose. I like Thinking in Java third edition. However there are some really great web sites out there. I like: Central Connecticut State University

Mostly you just have to work on a bunch of programs after learning parts of the language.

Good luck

[morefood2001]

As with any language, it takes time to learn the syntax. I suggest making goals for small programs and working up from there. Make sure you can make a small program before making something bigger.

[Panarchy]

Would creating a text editor with syntax highlighting count as a small project or a big one?

(as a starter project)

[morefood2001]

Thats a huge task because that requires a gui and many features. It would take me a solid week to produce something like that even at my skill level which is moderate!

I'd stick to a program that runs in a console, perhaps make a program that reads a text file and counts all the characters in it and outputs how many of each characters there are. Perhaps add a twist of making it look for correct parentheses/bracket placement.

At my skill level, something like this would take me about 2.5 hours to accomplish

[ArtoStiloz]

Java has a very confusing syntax, but once you are inside it, run it.

[chili5]

It's not that confusing actually, just gathering user input is a controversial topic.

It's best to start with console programs to learn the syntax, and move into GUI later. Not a great program to start with.

Introduction to Computer Science using Java has a lot of great problems to gets you started.

[ArtoStiloz]

If I had to start somewhere, I would start with C++

[chili5]

sure, but that's not related to this topic. He's learning Java.

[ArtoStiloz]

I say only that C++ will be the easiest way to start off with. What he chooses, he may even find out, however, I could give a thousand reasons to choose C++