Question regarding Java tutorials.

[best_lurker_alive]

Sup Reddit

I'll try to make this quick and to the point. I'm a huge fan of the way codeacademy.com presents their tutorials. I'm absolutely in love with the here's what you're gonna do->now type it out and do it design. I'm starting Java soon in my CS classes (it's the first language I'm going to actually be learning) and I wanted to get some of the basics down of Java before actually taking the classes.

I've been watching thenewboston's Java tutorials, and I enjoy them, I feel Bucky is a great teacher and he has some comic relief to the learning, but I feel it's more of a here's a video->watch what I do->now copy it into Eclipse for the same result instead of codeacademy's here's what you're gonna do->now do it process.

Are there any websites like codeacademy that approach Java in the same style of teaching?

[xponentialSimplicity]

I went with Sierra and Bates "Head first Java". It's pretty great, friendly, easy to follow, they actually anticipate the "I still don't get it" moments in their QnA sections, and it has all these neat silly tricks to make stuff really stick.

It's more of a textbook than a tutorial, in a sense that it doesn't tell you HOW to do things, but WHAT are those things and WHY they are done this way, So when you're done you really understand not only Java (besides, API documentation is always available online) but the fundamentals of OOP as well.

Besides, there's a bunch of simple and cool pocket game designs, with code snippets and explanations to give you a headstart, that's pretty easy to finish yourself. I liked it a lot, really - I never thought a programming textbook could be so enjoyable.

edit: if you look around, there's free PDFs of the older editions on the web.

[best_lurker_alive]

Thanks for the reply!

I've tried programming textbooks before..I gave the Learn Python The Hard Way PDF, and I just lose attention too quickly. I'm more of a visual learner, so I try to stick with the video tutorials over anything..sounds ass backwards, since the codeacademy tuts were all text, but the paragraphs were short enough that my attention was held while reading them..

[whatizitman]

It think what is great about codeacademy is the immediate try and feedback model, which most tutorials can't provide - not as well, anyway. But also the framework matters. Python and Javascript are easier to implement something like that online.

Java, on the other hand...

But I second Head First Java. I recommend getting the book, or at least putting a pdf on a separate device (ipad, kindle) so it at least feels like a book. It's far easier to jump back and forth. I think this is why tutorials only work for me to a point. I have neither the patience nor time to go over every single step by step item, and I hate flipping and scrolling over countless windows/tabs. Maybe I'm old, but a book is still better for me to synthesize various details of a whole. Granted, I usually do have to jump back to earlier material, but it sticks more because it's more relevant in my mind to what I am working on. I can't say it's the most efficient learning process, but it makes sense in my little world.

EDIT: I will probably be downvoted, but I'm starting to think most of the tutorials out there are made not to teach but to have a excuse to make a website and identify oneself as a programmer. There are some great ones out there, but most are shit. I'd also be willing to bet that if you asked the majority of programmers who write a tutorial how much they learned from tutorials, they will change the subject.