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Hello, all. I'm a total and complete newbie to Java, Eclipse and the lot.
I recently downloaded the book "Jave for Dummies 2nd Edition" Which focuses on Java 5, and Java 7 has come out, right?
My question is, should I continue with the 2nd edition, or should I go for a newer book? Are there many important changes in Java 7?
Thanks for the answers:)
There are some important additions in Java 6 and Java 7. But your biggest issue is that Java 5 and older versions are no longer supported. Java 6 and Java 7 are the only versions that are currently supported. You'll have to go to the "Previous Releases" section on the Oracle JDK download page to get the older versions.
The vast majority of what you read in the Java 5 book will still be relavant but there are some additions. Java 7 adds a variety of "syntactic sugar" (like a switch on a String, multicatch) that may confuse you a bit when you first see it but the old syntax works too.
You're probably fine learning the basics from the Java 5 book, it's similar enough to newer versions of Java to get by and understand the core Java language. Oracle also puts out a bunch of free online tutorials you can use to familiarize yourself with aspects of the Java language and API. See: The Java™ Tutorials