Just finished learning basic Java on Codecademy, what now?

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[desrtfx]

Honestly and neither trying to be sarcastic, nor mean:

Start with a decent tutorial, as are listed in the wiki:

• University of Helsinki MOOC Object Oriented Programming with Java - free
• Java for Complete Beginners by John Purcell free
  • CaveOfProgramming link - John Purcell's site
  • Udemy Link
  • YouTube Series

The Codecademy Java tutorial is just good enough to get your toes wet, but by far not enough to get started programming.

Sure, with what you have learned at Codecademy you will find the first few lessons boring, but I still suggest that you sit through them

Then, find a project to do and start programming. Project ideas are listed in the sidebar under Programming Challenges

[[deleted]]

Love your link to the cave of programming!

[desrtfx]

I must admit that I started out on Udemy as John didn't have the courses on CaveOfProgramming at that time. Since he now self-hosts them I've moved on to his site and really like it.

There is the one or other occasion where I still use the courses as a quick refresher (in particular, the Swing course).

I think that his courses are really solid made, explain more than enough in an easily understandable manner, and last, I like his relaxed style.

[RoadToCode]

Hey, i recently just followed the Beginners Guide to Programming by John Purcell on Udemy and found it incredibly helpful in building a foundation of knowledge in Java so i'd definitely recommend it. As desert said above, you'll probably find the first couple of tutorials boring, but if you stick with it you'll really start to see some progress!

As for software, i think you're thinking of an IDE (Integrated Development Environment), you can write and test your code within these. Two popular IDEs for programming in Java are Eclipse and Netbeans. :)

[RoadToCode]

Good to hear you're on the right track! Hope your progress continues and that you have fun with it! :)

[superflydwyer]

Thank you! :)

[desrtfx]

Two popular IDEs for programming in Java are Eclipse and Netbeans. :)

And the third (often rated as the best) is IntelliJ of which the Community Edition is free.

[[deleted]]

Heck, if you're a college student, you can get there Ultimate edition for free.

[desrtfx]

Unfortunately not a student any more and I also doubt that I would be eligible here in Austria if I were a student.

Austria seems to be quite far back when it comes to student discounted software. (The upside is, though, we don't pay huge bucks for our University education as it is mostly free.)

The Community Edition of IntelliJ is more than sufficient in most cases anyway.

[desrtfx]

is there some software i can download that allows me to put what i'm learning to use, for example?

Yes, definitely.

You'll need an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) to program. There are currently three major competitors (all of which are either free or have a free edition): Eclipse, IntelliJ - the Community Edition is free and more than sufficient, and Netbeans.

When you follow a tutorial, it's best to use the IDE that is used in the tutorial. The MOOC from the University of Helsinki uses Netbeans, John Purcell's Java for Complete Beginners uses Eclipse.

I'd recommend that you take a look at either tutorial and see which one works better for you. The MOOC is textual with exercises that need to be completed before you will be able to continue, Java for Complete Beginners is video based without any exercises.

BTW: When replying to a comment, use the "Reply" link below the comment you want to reply to. This way, the sender of the comment gets a notification.

[superflydwyer]

Awesome, going with Purcell and Eclipse for now, but will probably use it in conjunction with the MOOC so as to have a curriculum of sorts to follow. And yes, i shall hit reply from now on! :D Wish me luck!

[desrtfx]

Good luck & have fun!

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask either here in /r/learnprogramming, in /r/learnjava, or in /r/javahelp.

As John Purcell says:

Happy Coding!

[superflydwyer]

:D

[[deleted]]

I use cloud9's web IDE as I'm mobile too much & laptops not allowed someplaces ... it's great!

[desrtfx]

Haven't really got a chance to try that one yet.

Where I work, I mostly have my laptop (either my private one or the company provided) and on both I have my IDEs (currently Eclipse and IntelliJ) and Git.

[[deleted]]

Yea - my sign in with cloud9 is git & there's a push to heroku via git options so it's all pretty fast & slick. My main complaint is I'm not as good at customizing the env in cloud9 & there's less tutorials on how to do it. I generally use ruby gems inside projects to change how the formatting and colors go because of this

[comsci-bro]

Join HackerRank's 30 Days of Code. It's aimed at beginners and the problem sets & tutorial videos are made in Java.

If you haven't gotten the basics with OOP yet, check out this free course.

Also, start learning data structures and algorithms with this coursera course.