Java for Humans | Getting Started
After this chapter, we will embark on a journey together. You will learn many new concepts that will help you become a talented Java programmer. Before we begin, this chapter covers some things we should settle to ensure our journey is smooth, peaceful, and stress free.
Motivation: What You Can do With Java
If you need more motivation to learn Java, read the Conclusion chapter to learn more about what you can do with Java, how much you stand to gain from being a Java programmer, and how Java for Humans can get you started on the path to a promising career in Java software development.
What You Need Before Reading
This book will make use of Java 8, version 1.8.0_51, and you need a program to run the supporting code/programs. To learn Java, you will need to do a good deal of Googling, so let’s start now. Search Google or Youtube for how to install and use the NetBeans IDE along with Java 1.8 from Oracle. I would explain how to do it, but my explanation may not work for everyone because there are many different operating systems the readers of this book may be using. A great starting point is to visit the official website for Java resources: you can download both NetBeans and the most recent Java version from this link. For the time being, I have created a tutorial only for Windows users:
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
Going forward, I will be using NetBeans to deploy code as this is the easiest integrated development environment (IDE) for beginners. Feel free to leave any comments of NetbBeans issues and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
Click here to learn how to install NetBeans on Windows [video]
Click here to learn how to install NetBeans on Mac [video]
Learning by Googling
To learn Java, you will need to do a good deal of research through Google. I explain in depth how to learn by Googling and using other online resources in the Learning by Googling chapter. In this book, I have that chapter positioned after the chapters that cover the most basic Java concepts, but feel free to read it after this chapter.
Supporting Source Code
A great way to read this book is to also have the supporting source code for each chapter opened in your IDE. There will be increasingly large amounts of code in the remaining chapters of this book, but much of it will be omitted from the text to keep the chapters short. If a chapter appears long, it is likely that a considerable amount of it is code, not plain text, so hang in there.
Each chapter’s supporting source code can be found in its own namesake package under the source (src) folder. From the root folder, navigate to “src” and then choose the chapter you want to view.
Download the full project from GitHub but remember to type out all of the code yourself in order to effectively learn the Java language:
Side Notes
We will cover many concepts throughout this book. While I will take my time to explain each concept clearly and in ways you can relate to, there may be times when I need to explain other concepts with more jargon or deeper explanation to help you better understand. In those cases, you will see the following formatted text:
This is a side note which explains an aside. An aside is used to indicate that one is shifting from one topic or tone of discussion to another.
You do not have to read side notes, but it would be in your best interest to do whatever it takes to fully understand the concepts discussed in this book. If you do that, you will be well on your way to being a well equipped Java programmer.
Next Chapter
Table of Contents
You can access the table of contents at the bottom of each chapter just as it is laid out here. Simply click the link below to navigate to the table of contents which holds a list of all the chapters in the book.
Let’s get started.
A product of JavaForHumans.com by Lincoln W Daniel, the ModernNerd.
