

Best resources for learning Java, JDeveloper and SQL - celticninja

I have just wangled a job as a trainee developer. It is a total career change for me in my mid-30s. I have some basic understanding of programming however the role requires zero previous experience and they are happy to train me, however i also want to be responsible for my own development. I start the role in about a month so what can I do or where should I start to prepare myself.<p>thanks
======
dragonquest
I would advise starting off with a good Java book and writing code in a text
editor for a week or two before migrating to JDeveloper. It might seem
masochistic, but the steep curve pays off later. As for the book, "Java: The
Complete Reference (9th Edition)" by Herbert Schildt was recently launched and
covers the latest version of Java (Java 8). "Thinking in Java (4th Edition)"
by Bruce Eckel is also good, but requires a fair amount of programming
experience in other languages.

As for SQL, a short book called "SQL in 10 minutes" by Ben Forta is quite
good. Despite it's cheesy sounding name, it is a great resource to get up and
running quickly. Not in 10 minutes though. Also (forgive the shameless plug)
you can refer to my short ebook "A Primer on SQL", free to read and download.

[https://leanpub.com/aprimeronsql/](https://leanpub.com/aprimeronsql/)

------
antocv
Id suggest "Thinking in Java", "Effective Java" and to get OCJP training
material and start doing that.

Can you implement the 10 guesses game? You know, computer picks a number
between 1-100 and asks you to guess, then it tells you if its higher or lower.
Do this in a simple Java class, static main, play from console.

Then do that same program but this time as a web page and using JSP, for this
step itll require a lot. You have to make a Java project in Maven and deploy
it in tomcat. THere should be a button to "enter" the guess.

Now when youve done the above exercises, redo it and this time secure it, and
use ajax, no page refresh.

Now for the last exercise ask for the users name before gamae begins, and save
every game the user plays to a database of your choice, I suggest PostgreSQL,
and let any user see what other users played, like a replay of the game.

Make it as ugly and as wrong as you can think, dont care, just do this.

Now when you have done the above and have a webapp made with Java, JSP and
simple JDBC, where user can play in its browser, see historical games and so
on, add a counter "This many users are playing right now".

Next month, make a computer play the game you made. First code it to play
against the console version, then against the web one, you can make an API or
WebService to play it.

Now when youre done, come back in a month or two and ask again.

------
lukaseder
Since this is a bout Java and SQL in particular, I can only recommend our jOOQ
blog, as we're heavily blogging about the two topics:

[http://blog.jooq.org](http://blog.jooq.org)

Other good resources can be found in this top 100 list of Java blogs (not
really containing 100 items, though):

[http://www.programcreek.com/2012/11/top-100-java-
developers-...](http://www.programcreek.com/2012/11/top-100-java-developers-
blogs/)

Oracle's Java tutorials are pretty cool, too:

[http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/index.html)

And this excellent SQL blog:

[http://use-the-index-luke.com/](http://use-the-index-luke.com/)

