How to progress in Java without getting bored to death?

[zwirek2201]

Hi guys!
For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to find a way to quickly learn Java without getting bored to death by tutorials etc. I am a relatively experienced .NET developer and know object-oriented programming, I don't want to go down to basics of what an "if" statement is.

 

I would love to just get a project or an advanced tutorial that I could follow, but everything that I find on Youtube is either from 2010 or is 50% of basics of object-oriented programming. These "Learn programming interactively" websites are also bullsh*t for the most part because you spend hours trying to progress while clicking "submit" and getting "Great, you wrote hello world, here, have 200 useless points". Do you know a way that's going to get me quite quickly into the more advanced stuff? (I think the basics will just come along).

 

I know that in Java you can do some pretty badass stuff, but what are the coolest things that it allows programmers to do?

 

Just to clarify: If you want to get into .NET programming, you can start with basic stuff in console, then move to some more advanced stuff with WinForms or WPF where you'll actually see some nice progress. I'm looking for that advanced part of Java. 

 

Thanks for any advice!

[NinJake]

Try, fail, learn, repeat...

[ImNotThere]

to answer the title, you cant it is a very boring language that is very repetitive.

 

the best way is to talk to someone you know, get them to make a fake problem and create the solution in java, make them make it complex and bam, coding project andif you get stuck, google is your friend

[zwirek2201]

4 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Try, fail, learn, repeat...

Good one, but so far with Java my experience was

Try, fail, learn, *is it supposed to be so boring?*...

[Sir Asvald]

I'd had my fair share of learning programming in College. I was bored with Java, I gave up..  I like C++ C# although I most likely forgotten most of it.  

[SquintyG33Rs]

14 minutes ago, zwirek2201 said:

Hi guys!
For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to find a way to quickly learn Java without getting bored to death by tutorials etc. I am a relatively experienced .NET developer and know object-oriented programming, I don't want to go down to basics of what an "if" statement is.

 

I would love to just get a project or an advanced tutorial that I could follow, but everything that I find on Youtube is either from 2010 or is 50% of basics of object-oriented programming. These "Learn programming interactively" websites are also bullsh*t for the most part because you spend hours trying to progress while clicking "submit" and getting "Great, you wrote hello world, here, have 200 useless points". Do you know a way that's going to get me quite quickly into the more advanced stuff? (I think the basics will just come along).

 

I know that in Java you can do some pretty badass stuff, but what are the coolest things that it allows programmers to do?

 

Just to clarify: If you want to get into .NET programming, you can start with basic stuff in console, then move to some more advanced stuff with WinForms or WPF where you'll actually see some nice progress. I'm looking for that advanced part of Java. 

 

Thanks for any advice!

so focusing on the last part of your question i think you just have to narrow down your search. look for action listener tutorials with UI elements and other stuff. that's what i would do. if you know the advanced terms then you will only find the tutorials that use those. if you only search java you'll only find the basics.

[NinJake]

Just now, zwirek2201 said:

Good one, but so far with Java my experience was

Try, fail, learn, *is it supposed to be so boring?*...

Haha. Once you figure out how YOU can put java to use, you'll end up liking it more. It's always better when you want to do something rather than when you force yourself to do something.

[zwirek2201]

7 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Haha. Once you figure out how YOU can put java to use, you'll end up liking it more. It's always better when you want to do something rather than when you force yourself to do something.

I would love to do something in Java. I learned every programming language by practice, but I think I became so used to database applications, db warehouses and what not, that I have trouble imagining different kinds of applications and Java community and the language itself is so extensive that it's quite challenging to find something that's neither too boring nor too insane to learn

[Mira Yurizaki]

Learn how to develop an Android app since Android uses Java as its app language.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Going to double post because of my curse of editing and people probably not seeing it.

 

Note if you do go the Android route, Google's implementation of Java is different than Oracle's. So while you can probably use the same concepts in Java, the underlying aspects of how that code is run are different. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Java_and_Android_API

[Beskamir]

Don't. Learn something better like c++  

 

But seriously, C# is basically Java done right. Main issue with C# is it seems to require visual studio for basically everything. 

 

Actually why do you want to learn Java? And can you somehow make that reason be the motivating factor for pushing through the boring bits? 

[Yamoto42]

1 hour ago, ElfFriend said:

But seriously, C# is basically Java done right. Main issue with C# is it seems to require visual studio for basically everything. 

This pretty much sums up my opinion on it...

Except support.  Java has almost infinitely better support on non-M$ machines...although C# may be trying to escape.

The real question is "Is Java too ingrained for C#, even if open sourced, to get a footing outside Microsoft?"  Unfortunately I suspect the answer to be "Yes."


It's not dissimilar to perl vs python.  python as a language is so much better.  People had to learn it [perl] when it was the best (and potentially only) tool of its kind, then when starting future projects they used what they knew instead of looking at new tools first.

 

The only reason python has been successful in that regard is it did not start with the proprietary baggage C# has.

[vorticalbox]

On ‎29‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 8:33 PM, ImNotThere said:

to answer the title, you cant it is a very boring language that is very repetitive.

then you're doing it wrong, one of the fundamentals of programming is DRY, don't repeat yourself.

[OhadShwartzman]

Move to C or C++, I learned Java and it's an incredibly boring language.

I would move to C because you would learn way more with it, OOP might be cool but it's good to learn the older but still relevant stuff also.

[PocketNerd]

If you're already experienced in OOP, just read the documentation and have at er.

[Claryn]

I found functional programming with Java 8 to be pretty interesting. Getting used to Lambda-expressions, the Stream()-methods and other functional interfaces. 

[HunterSkater429]

On 6/29/2017 at 2:37 PM, zwirek2201 said:

Good one, but so far with Java my experience was

Try, fail, learn, *is it supposed to be so boring?*...

That's what separates the people who  succeed and fail in life. 

 

The ones who succeed get though the boring part. They chug though it all untill their end goal is met.

 

The ones who fail give up or don't take the time to do things the right way and try to rush. 

[zwirek2201]

6 hours ago, HunterSkater429 said:

That's what separates the people who  succeed and fail in life. 

 

The ones who succeed get though the boring part. They chug though it all untill their end goal is met.

 

The ones who fail give up or don't take the time to do things the right way and try to rush. 

Wow, you should write books or some shit.

[SpaceNugget]

browse github and find a project in a different language that really sparks your interest. try to recreate it in java. Any language without an interesting program to write is 'boring' its what you do with it that becomes exciting.

 

https://github.com/explore

 

The best way to learn a new language/framework is just to make something and learn along the way, once you have all of the concepts and bits of jargon you have picked up you can start to understand the articles and tutorials aimed at advanced concepts without getting stuck on the weird language.

[SCHISCHKA]

Look up Advanced topics in java 8. They added new features which should keep you interested.

www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/8-whats-new-2157071.html

[reniat]

I strongly prefer C++ to java like many have said so far, but i'd like to point out that the focus should be on the problem, and less the language. An interesting language can be boring if you're solving a boring problem, and a boring language (*cough* java) can be interesting if you're working on an interesting problem. It's the same reason why which languages you know is kind of useless as a metric for evaluating a developer. The languages can be swapped around, but the actually meaningful stuff is how you approach and tackle real design problems.

 

EDIT: I'll give a concrete example. I spent the first year out of college working on our older C++ software, and then switched to doing Java development on our new platform. I actually hate a lot of the Java environment, and legitimately miss working on C++, but I am MUCH happier despite all that, because the things i am making and the problems i'm solving now are much more meaningful and challenge me in ways that the older code didn't. If i could flick a switch and change our new stuff to c++ so I could do the same work but without java, i'd do it in a heartbeat, but since I can't I much prefer the position which gives me meaningful problems to tackle.

 

tl;dr project > language 

[FrankV]

I mostly just poke through relevant open source to learn a new language as well as do things like CodeFights puzzles in the language I want to learn.