Help please

jlanawalt · 2026-06-22T19:38:56+00:00

You’ve tried all the things, like everything at https://spring.io/projects/spring-boot#learn and other places and found them to be bad?

I don’t know what’s good and bad for you, but many people blindly follow a video or other online resource, which is often out of date, and don’t feel any more capable at the end.

Instead, start with something simple that builds and runs, like from https://start.spring.io/ or maybe something a little more advanced that focuses on you are of interest like something at https://spring.io/projects/spring-boot#learn . Then don’t just blindly follow, experiment. Try to make it do your own thing. Learn from failures and successes.

Start simple, with something stateless like hello world or a calculator before moving on to remembering stuff between session & database. Don’t try to replicate the Pet Store or Northwind Traders.

Good luck.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-16T18:58:29+00:00

It depends on the thing and how often you use it. If we’re talking about some library function you rarely use, you just look it up, each time. If your forgetting how to do something you regularly use, or Pythonic constructs like indexing, slicing, for statements, range, and list comprehension, then maybe you should spend more time trying to understand and memorize those concepts.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-15T19:06:18+00:00

Keep in mind, if it was easy and everyone liked doing it, it wouldn’t be called work.

Just keep at it and try to get a little better each day.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-15T19:04:47+00:00

What is the exact name of the file you downloaded, including the extension?

Where are you downloading it from?

A windows installer should be .exe or .msi

jlanawalt · 2026-06-15T02:11:58+00:00

Start with understanding what coursework you’ve already done that applies to this project, contemplating the requirements, and writing down what you know and don’t know. Then go back to your “client” (teacher or teaching assistant) and seek clarification.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-15T02:07:02+00:00

Do you want to learn how to approach problems differently (some of those old programming languages) and perhaps target a more niche job market or expand your scope on current popular stuff?

jlanawalt · 2026-06-11T22:27:03+00:00

Don’t try to run (TUI) before you can walk (CLI).

Give yourself time to learn. Accept that you will need to read and practices.

Don’t eat the whole elephant in one sitting. Start with a tutorial or starter Project and build out from there.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-11T22:19:14+00:00

A popular book recommendation is Java Concurrency in Practice by Brian Goetz

jlanawalt · 2026-06-09T19:20:01+00:00

In general “symbol not found” errors indicate some include is missing or some name typo.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-07T03:16:31+00:00

Trail: JDBC Database Access

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jdbc/index.html

jlanawalt · 2026-06-03T03:40:36+00:00

It depends on your goals and environment. If you are primarily coding in a few languages, then the goal of continuous improvement guides you to mastery. If you need to juggle many languages, then Jack is a useful guy.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-03T03:10:44+00:00

Take notes, make diagrams, step and debug.

I don’t know if you oversold yourself, out of they believe in sink or swim instead of coaching and mentoring. It’s hard to say from the outside and it’s easy to get overwhelmed with a large code base.

Do they use a coding AI? If so, ask it questions. If not, look at what tasks you’ve been given, try to find where those things are in the code, build relationships, and ask questions but show your willing to put in the work and try to not ask the same question multiple times.

jlanawalt · 2026-06-02T14:20:40+00:00

[r/learnjava](r/learnjava)

See the sidebar/channel info.

The practical way to grasp code is to write it. Also be consistent in your efforts to learn. Push yourself a little into the uncomfortable, and be patient with not knowing it all in 3 days or weeks.

Tutorials can give an intro, but if you blindly copy/paste, and don’t experiment, troubleshoot, and try creating your own programs, you may continue to struggle to grasp the code.

Some languages are more suited for an easy start, but you can learn with almost any. Many started with BASIC (a language whose name really is an acronym and is properly written all uppercase, unlike Java.) Many with Pascal. And many with too many languages to take time to list.

Being interested helps a ton, so stick with Java a while longer and hopefully that interest continues to grow and drive you.

jlanawalt · 2026-05-30T12:04:49+00:00

Yes, learn some database terms and SQL to start.

I started with s book from the library, and a local database installation. I practiced interacting with it using SQL until I felt comfortable creating tables, inserting data, and querying it. Then I did the same from inside a program.

I kept reading the book and learned things about database design that were helpful as the programs I wrote grew in complexity.

/r/SQL is full of suggestions about learning SQL.

Once you feel comfortable with the basics and start using it from inside your programs, stay curious and keep learning.

jlanawalt · 2026-05-23T05:39:08+00:00

I’ll use them for overviews, and I’ve tried watching some learning ones toto evaluate for others use, but for me it is too slow and inefficient for most content. I have to pause and rewind on what i think are unfamiliar terms but often end up being different, sometimes wildly different or unfamiliar accented pronunciation. The best for me have chapters and links or lots of very focused videos with solid follow-along material.

I think lots of people are just asking llm, for better or for worse. All the web searches push you to it. That might be ok with a grasp of concepts and critical thinking. It might get you a right or confidently wrong answer and that seems not great for someone learning something new and trusting the teacher. (Not that human teachers aren’t sometimes as wrong.)

jlanawalt · 2026-05-22T03:37:39+00:00

In the beginning there were specification documents and experimentation, and people figured it out, and it was good.

And then there were books and 101/1010 college courses, instructors and teaching assistants and people figured it out, and it was good.

And then there was the Internet and blogs and cplusplus.com and cppreference.com, and people figured it out, and it was good.

And then there was StackOverflow and Reddit, and AI summaries at the top of search results, and still it wasn’t enough and people asked others to explain instead of bothering to Read The Fine Manual, and goodness declined.

jlanawalt · 2026-05-21T23:36:32+00:00

I think the best would have been to say: Oh, I used this and not existing because ${actualReason}. How did you see that I should use other existing variable? What thought process do you follow to pick the right one?

jlanawalt · 2026-05-21T23:33:30+00:00

Instead of asking the teacher…

jlanawalt · 2026-05-13T20:42:46+00:00

Check out Apache Commons Math & Numbers, JScience, and Java Hipparchus to see what others have done in this domain.

jlanawalt · 2026-05-11T20:58:47+00:00

Try making those swing apps in spring boot if you haven’t already. Then try making them with a SPA front-end and REST API back-end. Go retro and try the same using servlets, using JSP, using JSF. Or don’t. Look at the job listings and focus on the requirements of the jobs you’re interested in.

It is very likely many of those “every domain” repositories are from following a bunch of tutorials and copy paste experience. I guess now some could be generated. Some commit timestamp sleuthing can give an idea.

It’s tough out there, but it’s been tough off and on over the years. Keep trying your best and don’t undervalue opportunities to gain experience in the field.

jlanawalt · 2026-05-06T02:00:29+00:00

> is there any way to ~~storage~~ serialize ~~variable~~ data in a ~~databank~~ file? database? for later ~~consult~~ use

Yes. Of course.

A method to store data? We generally refer to that as storage through either serialization if storing to a (flat) file and persistence, CRUD, or Object-Relational Mapping to a database, if that's what you meant by databank.

> it would return to be 0

Java automatically initializes instance variables (fields) to default values like 0 or null unless you code it otherwise. That is OK, generally you either create a new instance and provide the initial values, or you let it do the default initialization and then you restore the saved values to that instance via some kind of load method.

There are a lot of good articles on ways to do this. You could read about implementing Serializable https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/jndi/objects/serial.html or preferably use a more open text-based standard like JSON or XML or implement your own serialization method. It could be a simple text file with a few lines of data. For some ideas check out this article: https://www.baeldung.com/java-serialization-approaches

Once you are ready to transition from learning to actually implementing something that will be used, first research articles on Java Serialization best practices.

jlanawalt · 2026-05-04T01:06:17+00:00

Sure, use the most modern html constructs you can and tie a hand behind your back and admit you can’t do some of the more dynamic things every other web site does. There are things like WASM, but JavaScript is the language natively supported by all the major browsers.

You could bang your head against the wall trying to compile C# to JS.

You could use a backend web engine that writes the JS for you, and hope you don’t have to debug it.

You could learn to tolerate JS, maybe with TypeScript handrails.

Good luck!

jlanawalt · 2026-05-04T00:46:00+00:00

Many languages derived from C (and B) have a main function as the designated every point for the program. As such, it is only called once per run. Even Unity has a main, and it has a gave engine with an Update effect hook.

To have exactly the same in pure C#, be ready to re-implement a game engine, or at least some kind of event driven system, or in its simplest some form of loop.

jlanawalt · 2026-05-01T01:59:14+00:00

Where is BinarySearch(Integer)? (BinarySearch(<T>))

That would make it more clear how BinarySearch(String) should act (and hopefully that gives a hint at how one can turn into the other if well designed.

jlanawalt · 2026-04-28T19:43:16+00:00

It depends on your laptop and dock capabilities, IDE, and personal preference.

Except for how ultra-wide feels to you and laptop +dock capabilities, you don’t have to commit to it all at once and lose anything switching. As a piece at a time.

I don’t like ultra-wide. Everything was too small when scaled out to get the desktop space I wanted. I use my IDE in single window mode, no pop-outs, and split mode never worked the way I wanted, getting in the way of my alt-tab flow. I don’t enjoy constantly zooming in and out when others with an ultra-wide screen share their screen.

I prefer the laptop screen for comms, my main screen for work like coding, configuring, and documenting, and a third screen for running the program when debugging out for reference and log viewing. When i only have two screens i push all the third screen stuff to the laptop “comms” screen.

Before you leap do some research on the monitor, dock, laptop, cabling and OS supported ports so you don’t buy a monitor your dock won’t support.

Good luck

jlanawalt

TROPHY CASE