Java Programming or other language?

zabar_ullah · #1 16-May-2008, 02:29 PM

Hi All,

I have a friend who has I.T Technicians experience, but he got bored of that and was considering moving to another field (Programming). He doesn’t have any previous experience in programming and isn’t sure where to start!!!! He is considering Java programming language.

1. Can anyone give us some advise as to if Java programming language is a good first language to learn, if not which language should he start from?
2. Where can he study? He wants the course to be as cheap as possible. I.E. Study from any good books and then pay for his exam, cutting out any class room fees etc.

All suggestions are appreciated

Thanks

Zab

**hbroomhall** · #2 16-May-2008, 07:06 PM

If he doesn't have *any* experience of programming then the one problem is that he won't know if he will be any good at it.

People's minds work in different ways, and some find programming fun, while others struggle and come to hate it!

At least with Java the development environment is free, and there are many into web-sites around, so he could get a taster for almost nothing.

If he wants a book then my 'bible' is "Core Java" by Cay S. Horstmann and Garry Cornell and published by Prentice Hall. This is a 2 volume thing, but you could always just get the first one (Fundamentals) to get you going.

Sun do certs in Java, but frankly few people really bother with them. Either you can do it or not, and prospective employers are quick to discover this at interview. My work department uses Java as a standard language, but few in the department have certs.

These days almost any modern language will cover much the same sort of ground, so Java is a good any other starter language, and probably better than some.

Harry.

dmarsh26 · #3 16-May-2008, 07:19 PM

What he said !

Java certs are far from valueless but are not strictly required, the SCJP is not a bad sylabus to learn programming fundamentals. You could certainly do worse than pick up Java and follow the SCJP track, its a fairly reasonable approach and approximates what many colleges do around the world anyway.

Alternatively you could try learn something funky like Ruby or Python, also free.

You could learn C# .Net, also a fairly safe bet and free for runtime and Express IDE also free. You can try .Net code out interactively in Windows Powershell.

If you really wanted to go crazy you could look at XNA or silverlight.

These are just the current in vogue languages, theres as many more if none of these suit...

Its whatever works and makes it meaningful for you really.

zabar_ullah · #4 17-May-2008, 12:30 PM

Thanks guys for your response.

I guess he can start learning from free online materials to see if he will like it or not, then he could move to a java book.

I have studied the fundementals of programming myself (can't remember what language it was a very old one) although currently I am studying A+ technicians and will progress to MCSE.

Thanks again.
Zab