What would you recommend?

[Paul Wallace]

At work we are trying to put together an in-house training programme
for IT staff with basic programming knowledge who want to become
developers, specifically Java developers.

Can anyone recommend a good tutorial based Java book for beginners
that will not only teach Java but emphasis good software engineering
techniques? Thinking in Java comes to mind, but its a while since I
read such books and was hoping for some guidance.

Also, any references to on-line training materials that I could use
would be appreciated.

Cheers

Paul

[Marcelo Fukushima]

id second thinking in java and also the head first series

--
[]'s
Marcelo Takeshi Fukushima

[man...@mosabuam.com]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:46:01 -0800 (PST), Paul Wallace
<pwwall...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> At work we are trying to put together an in-house training programme
> for IT staff with basic programming knowledge who want to become
> developers, specifically Java developers.

Head First Java and some of the other related Head First books (OO and
Design Pattern e.g.) are great.

[Andrew Harmel Law]

Thinking In Java is also great and available for free.

Andrew

On Feb 25, 5:10 am, <manf...@mosabuam.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:46:01 -0800 (PST), Paul Wallace
>

[Christian Catchpole]

To get them ready for life as a developer, just give them a 2 Gig log
file littered with stack traces and a screaming dev manager.

[BoD]

:))))
So sad, and so true.

[Paul Wallace]

The list of suggestions so far are:

- Java How to Program, Deitel & Deitel
- Head First Java, Sierra & Bates
- Thinking In Java, Eckel
- 2 Gig log file, Catchpole

It's a tough call...

[Steven Herod]

To properly simulate the log file situation, it needs to be on a
production server you don't have access to and the operations person
tells you its too large to download, he'll just send you the relevant
sections, once you raise the right kind of request.

On Feb 26, 7:36 am, Christian Catchpole <christ...@catchpole.net>
wrote:

[Vince O'Sullivan]

On Feb 28, 1:29 am, Steven Herod <steven.he...@gmail.com> wrote:
> To properly simulate the log file situation, it needs to be on a
> production server you don't have access to and the operations person
> tells you its too large to download, he'll just send you the relevant
> sections, once you raise the right kind of request.

Also, the ops guy should go on leave for a fortnight, from the same
day that you find out that the request form is both incomprehensible
and doesn't contain anywhere for you to enter your requirements.
Ideally, he'll have delegated the work to a colleage who's unfamiliar
with Unix.

[Captain Obvious]

well all the non catchpole suggestions are the more "traditional" way
of learning. I believe christian would train soldiers to be in special
forces by shooting at them with an uzi - the ones that live are
recruited. Probably an effective method by filtering out people who
can't naturally dodge bullets.

[Bill Robertson]

Back in the day (like 1999), "Just Java" was a great book. I know it
has been updated since then, but I'm not sure if its current. Peter
van der Linden writes really well.

[Casper Bang]

I hope the later editions of Just Java have improved the one I cut my
teeth on in 98, I absolutely hated it for its poor organization and
cohesion. For tutorial based material to newbies I'd definitely
recommend Head First Java, later to be supplemented with Head First
Design Patterns. They are very visual and story based books that makes
it fun and a breeze to go through the material. No one book will do it
perfectly of course.

/Casper

[Eric Winter]

Thinking in Java 4th Edition. For an assessable and thorough
introduction I always recommend that. I guess people swear by the
Head First book but I like something meatier. After they should read
first Effective Java and then Code Complete (Maybe Clean Code is
similar but I haven't read that yet).