macOS Quickest way to come up to speed in Java?

[ChrisA]

What's the quickest way to come up to speed in Java and the java Beans IDE? I don't need to learn programming.

Some background:
I've got 25+ years full time experience with C, C++, Ada, Perl, Assembly and lots more. I just found out I need to fix a long list of bugs in a large Java based system. It's an industrial control app that has interfaces to many devices and a GUI. As they say a "non-trivial" application. I've worked on this kind of stuff for years but just not in Java or java beans.

I's not like I can't find a book on this subject. But which to get.

Thanks.

 

[toddburch]

Well, you know OO concepts, and you know programming concepts and syntax.

And you are taxed with fixing some bugs and/or adding some features.

Just hop into it. With all that background, it's not that big a deal. You might spend more time on learning the IDE than than language.

(Did you mean Netbeans IDE?) I don't know how good Netbeans is, but Eclipse is awesome - syntax checking as you type, so once it tells you there are no syntax errors, your compile should work perfect.

 

[ChrisA]

Well, you know OO concepts, and you know programming concepts and syntax.

And you are taxed with fixing some bugs and/or adding some features.

Just hop into it. With all that background, it's not that big a deal. You might spend more time on learning the IDE than than language.

(Did you mean Netbeans IDE?) I don't know how good Netbeans is, but Eclipse is awesome - syntax checking as you type, so once it tells you there are no syntax errors, your compile should work perfect.[/QUOTE

Yes to all of the above. Was looking for a good reference as I know I will have to look up everything. You are right about the language, they all are only slightly different but what takes a while is the libraries and the environment. For example Objective C is small and simple but Apple's set of APIs is huge and getting "huger" with new things like OpenCL.

 

[plinden]

The standard Java APIs are well documented - eg. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/index.html

If you come across a Class that's not in the JDK, just google for the full class name followed by API (e.g. google for "org.hibernate.query.Query API") and the JavaDocs are usually in the first couple of results.

On the other hand, custom inhouse APIs are generally not well documented due to laziness.

I second the recommendation to use Eclipse. Its syntax checking and auto-completion means I hardly ever look up API documentation any more. That's not to say that Netbeans is not a good IDE - I've used both - but I just prefer Eclipse.

 

[Cromulent]

I second the recommendation to use Eclipse. Its syntax checking and auto-completion means I hardly ever look up API documentation any more. That's not to say that Netbeans is not a good IDE - I've used both - but I just prefer Eclipse.

Eclipse is okay but I find it rather poor when working with JSP. Slow too.