Thread: intro & a question!

Hello people,

I'm Dennis, 22, from the Netherlands. I'm completely new to Java programming, but the reason I've chosen to learn this language is because it has a bright future, runs on a lot of platforms and just seems like a lot of fun to learn.

In the past I've gone to college to study IT, but I had to quit right before the exams (some personal issues). During that time I've learned to program in PHP and VB a bit, and also did some development in CSS and HTML which I do not consider real programming languages. Nowadays I work part-time as a web dev, creating simple websites in HTML and CSS whilst also being tutored to expand my capabilities within web development. This will include some PHP, since I've completely forgotten how it works, and also some JavaScript.

Now, I'm a hard learner. I can't really learn from books that easily when they're just purely text, but I decided that I would like to try and learn Java from books since I am not able to follow classes (too expensive & can't find any nearby). My question to you guys is, what would be an excelent book to learn Java from? What I need is a book that is not intimidating (1500 pages, pure text, no screenshots, oh my!) and has tests to put what you've learnt into practice.

I figured there'd be a lot of people on this forum who have learnt this language mostly by themselves, so I hoped you could tell me a little bit about your learning process.

I do know that learning this language will take a long time, and that it's going to be a big time investment, but I've decided that I really want to do this, just to expand my personal knowledge, skills and capabilities.

Amazon.com: Head First Java (9780596009205): Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates: Books

Awesome book and you can buy it used. About 600 pages and it takes you baby steps into Java going into GUI builds closer to the end of the book.

However, I would suggest you become familiar with other languages as well: Python, Perl, Javascript, etc. This depends on what you want to do, but always be eager to learn new languages.