The Java Story

I did my Core Java in college and also enrolled myself with NIIT paying a hefty amount (Rs.22,000) for Core + Advance Java. Little did I know, that my money was going to waste. Students doing engineering and IT courses in India all have heard this fancy word JAVA in there existence as a collegiate.

Its cool, its a fancy word for a language which everyone says will-fetch-you-a-Job, its got OOPs also and even GUI and networking capabilities. Sure, it all sounds so good, the icing on the cake being its platform independent, how can I forget : Its Portable and Secure too!

After the intro to the jargon filled terms, Java seems like THE language that should be part of every programmers / developers arsenal. Its the primary if not foremost weapon (.Net fanboys please be patient)

So, with all these aspirations and expectations not to mention disillusionment I joined NIIT. My experience was bad. There is no screening test or anything so there was a 9th class kid with us first years! There was also a businessman whose phone kept ringing in every class. The pace was slow and it was just brief.

Before this turns into NIIT bashing article let me put Java in perspective. So, ESSENTIALLY learned Java on my own using E-books and online video tutorials downloaded from torrents. Internet is the best place to learn. Now, after having done with Core Java, Swings, JSP, Beans etc I can say that Java is well beautiful language. Its a tad weird with some strange quirks but then its definitely very powerful.

Capable of making both Desktop applications aswell as Distributed Network applications scalable over many systems. Its great! I just finished with my internship with a company, worked on Advanced Java. It was a learning experience and the more I learn the better can I appreciate the magic and simplicity of Java. For the university students reading this, those of you who really wish to learn Java here is the lowdown.

• Ditch the default command prompt compiler, it sucks
• Get JCreator Lite version, its free and offers a Turbo C++ type environment
• Buy one good Java Reference Book with lots of examples like Java in 60 minutes daily
• Download different ebooks which you can refer when you want more info. It helps!
• After doing every concept. Make you own small programs. If you are the lazy one like me make few short programs of your own combining 2-3 concepts into one.

If you follow the above said way, I’m sure you can complete Java Core in say 1 month. Yes, including AWT(GUI). Its always helpful to have prior programming knowledge. (Say, C++) HTML doesn’t count. VB well….. yes but C++ is the best way out. Java is strictly OOPS unlike C++.

Advanced Java will take anywhere between 15 days to 2 months depending on your interest levels and how deep you wish to go in. The main components are JSP, Servlets, EJB. Extra’s are a lot like Struts, Springs, Velocity etc. So as I said, it depends.

Hope it helps.

Tagged as: Learn Programming