

Ask HN: Best resources for learning Java 8? Too many - gamechangr

Twenty friends are learning Java together with no background in development (for the most part).<p>We do have three full time Java developers, all good friends, who will be each volunteering two hours a week, so we have a two hour class three times a week.<p>What resources would you recommend?
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matt_s
I'm assuming you are one of the 3 devs so you know the resources you should
use will change over time. I would suggest when starting to learn to avoid any
IDE. They will definitely want to use one later, but nail down the basics
first. Go with text editor and do compiles manually to educate them on what is
going on (bytecode running in JVM, etc.)

Start them off with a simple problem to solve like opening a comma separated
list of data in a text file and parsing it into objects to then display on
screen. Pick some data that is of interest to the 20. Teach them how to log
errors and where to look and how to troubleshoot.

As far as learning programming goes - Oracle has maintained the decent
documentation/tutorials on Java here:
[https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/)

Start them on the basics trail ... as a group they probably have some idea of
a project, so focus on the aspects of Java that will help that project going.

Once they understand the basics - choose an IDE for the group and learn the
ins/outs of that together. And if you all are going to be contributing
together on a project, learn how to use a source code control tool.

Also if it is a web project, my approach would be to learn the basics of HTTP
get/put with Servlets and forget frameworks. Once they understand the model of
web applications - introduce frameworks and that there are trade-offs when
choosing one (speed of dev with complexity of solution).

~~~
gamechangr
I appreciate the feedback. Upvoted for sure.

I thought we would start with Eclipse as it's easier, but you bring up a good
point. No IDE's. Note taken.

I'm thinking I will use Spring as well. If anyone thinks that is a mistake (or
confirm it's right) -- it would be appreciated.

Thanks

