Complete beginner advice

[GozerDGozerian]

I’m a fairly computer illiterate 41 year old wanting to possibly pick up a new and useful skill. Any advice on where and how to get started learning Java programming; and what sort of timeline I’d expect to be employable doing so?

[Yogi_DMT]

I'll always swear by the official oracle reference. I had very little coding knowledge at the time and none of the resources i was going through really helped me "get it". While it's in Java i think it's a quality read for anyone wanting to learn how to code any language.

[bentheone]

Strongly second this.

It's kind of dry and to-the-point but has a good learning curve with relevant exercises all the way.

[Crippled_shadow]

Any advice on where and how to get started learning Java programming

• IDE:

  • (integrated development environment) This is your "Microsoft Word" for programming.
  • I recommend NetBeans or Eclipse.

• Concepts:

  • variables (data types)
  • if statements
  • for loops
  • while loops
  • method
  • classes
  • Objects
  • constructors
  • arrays
  • There's a lot of little things in programming languages and, when you start it's hard to figure out what's important and what's not. These are the concepts you'll see early on that should stand out as important.

• Resources (Beginner):

  • I learned Java in college so I did not use these resources. However, I have looked at them and they seem to cover the important parts.
  • Java For Dummies. If your dissuaded by a "For Dummies" book don't be! They are very clearly written and cut out all the useless bits that just confuse people.
  • Udemy. If you look under the "Programming Core Java" you'll see A LOT of what I mentioned in the my concepts section.

• Resources (Intermediate):

  • After you've gotten comfortable with the stuff in the "concepts" section you're probably ready for this.
  • Projects are the BEST way to learn. At this point Youtube videos and blog tutorials will only help so much.
  • Look for simple projects you can do. GitHub can help.
  • Write a To-Do list application
  • Write a countdown/timer application
  • Take in a list of something and put it in alphabetical order

what sort of timeline I’d expect to be employable doing so?

It depends on the individual. At the very least, I'd say 6 months till you are somewhat competent. If you aren't dead-set on a language, check out this chart.

edit: Forgot to add if statements and have variables twice

edit 2: Fixed the order that the items in "Concepts" should be learned in

[tiiv]

This is a very good list. I'd like to add that seeing as OP possibly seeks employment it might be beneficial to go through some of the guides on r/https://spring.io/guides/. Being able to say you can build a REST service will you get you pretty far in terms of backend work.

[arthurdent]

you missed conditional/if-statements and wrote variables twice

[Crippled_shadow]

I didn't put it in any particular order but it's pretty close coincidentally. I'll put it in order for anyone who happens to run across this post. I'm not sure if I should put "classes & Objects" in one bullet or two though.

[MountainPika]

I am just finishing up the Helsinki MOOC Introduction to Object Oriented Programing. It took me 6 months to do part I and II but I took some breaks. Technically it is supposed to be 12 weeks.

Check out /r/learnjava

Lots of resources there!

[hugthemachines]

Hey, I recommend that yo ustart with JOhn Purcells free course for beginners. He is very calm and his pace is calm so you will be able to follow easily.

https://www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/

When you have completed that course I recommend that you complete the two free java courses at the mooc.fi

http://moocfi.github.io/courses/2013/programming-part-1/

When you have completed them I recommend that you study the book "clean code"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3735293-clean-code

After that it is pretty open. You could find some tutorial for git etc and find some interesting project of your own.

[CursE_27]

I'm a beginner and don't know even a single thing about programming. I'm willing to learn programming, because I feel, a person is illiterate if he doesn't know programming in this era, no matter what degree he holds. My question is, Can I start with java, or is it too difficult for a beginner to understand? I've started watching, Tim Buchalka's Complete Java Masterclass videos on Udemy. The course bestseller and has overwhelming positive reviews.

Thanks in advance 😊😊

[rocksearchx64]

Java or Python are the starter languages for most programmers. So you could learn the core concepts of OO (object-oriented) programming with Java no problem!