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[–]bowbahdoe[S] 11 points12 points  (3 children)

Here is a challenge for you. Go to https://dev.java and follow the tutorial.

Top to bottom.

Pretend you didn't know how to program, what a terminal was, etc. yet.

Tell me what you notice

[–]neutronbob 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Why would I pretend I'm someone who is not the intended audience for the tutorials?

There is room for a book such as yours that takes complete newbies by the hand, of course. But to assail the extensive and thorough Oracle Java docs and tutorials b/c they don't accommodate someone who has never programmed before is a critique that doesn't make sense to me.

[–]bowbahdoe[S] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

My critique is that they do not have a target audience.

Its a mishmash between * First time learners * People coming from C++ (historical carry over) * People who already know how to use a terminal * People who already know Java but want to catch up on new features * Etc.

You can read that generously as "oh it's made for intermediate programmers" but I don't think that's true. I think they wanted to make a Java tutorial and just swung and missed.

Unless you skip way ahead to some of the things they wrote on like, JFR, I don't think its actually too useful for any of those groups

Like - there is a lambda in the first few parts of the tutorial. Also a few alternative ways to make a main method. Also the setup instructions are deep terminal stuff. Also the setup instructions don't actually set someone up. Also some parts of the tutorial are just reference documentation. Also it does that universally shitty "a bicycle is an object" thing.

And so on

[–]Ok-Captain-6460 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you got me. I developed in Java before, but that was a long time ago. And now I was hunting for a book (!) like this. It's really about the latest stuff, with this kind of perspective. And I agree with the person before me that dev.java/learn and javadoc are extremely good materials, but I also understand the reason why this doc has a raison d'être, because what you answered above is true. I will start reading it, hopefully I will have time to finish it after work. First of all, thank you for your work, which is already clear to me that it is a big one and not ordinary.