How Long Does it Take to Learn Java for a Complete Newbie

Question

I have absolutely no programming experience but need to learn Java - enough to take a J2ME fasttrack course  I only have 10 weeks  Can I do this  What s your advice about the best resources I can use   currently using Sun s Java Tutorials

User · Answer

The best advice for learning to program is basically: write a lot of programs.

Project Euler contains lots of problems well suited for this purpose, as the resulting programs are manageable in size while actually allowing you to solve an explicit problem.

http://projecteuler.net/index.php

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10 weeks  Apparently you can do it in 24 hours   http   www amazon com Sams-Teach-Yourself-Programming-Hours dp 0672328445  EDIT   Okay  so only 1 person found my answer amusing  but not amusing enough to upvote   The real question is how good do you need to be in 10 weeks   If you get yourself a good book  the one linked above has some good reviews on Amazon   then in 10 weeks you might be proficient enough to do something useful in Java  but it takes years to become expert   Any time spent between 10 weeks and several years will move you from beginner towards expert   Oh and read Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years

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I teach Java Programming at a high school  and our course runs 14 weeks   This is enough time to give students a solid foundation in object oriented programming  but students are not experienced enough to develop and large projects or anything too complicated   Many schools use the textbook by Lambert  amp  Osbborne   Lambert  K   amp  Osborne  M  Fundamentals of Java  AP Computer Science Essentials for the AP Exam  3rd ed  2006  Thomson Course Technology

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I had no programming background and wanted to learn PHP  It took me about 6 months practicing beside my normal job to develop my skills enough to write some simple applications for a website  Java is a bit more complex

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I wouldn t say I had  no programming experience  but prior to learning J2ME  most of what I d done was in assembler more than 10 years prior   I skipped learning  JAVA  and learned J2ME  which appears to be a small subset of java   It s small enough  if you ignore the extensions  that it s very digestable and easily explained in a moderately sized book   From that standpoint  it was a little bit like assembler  somewhat limited amount of stuff to know  although I did need to learn about OOP   I bought a few J2ME books  but the one I found most helpful was   Programming Wireless Devices with the Java 2 Platform  by Riggs  et al   I don t recall exactly how long it took me  but I m pretty sure I was writting deployable code  it was a mobile time sheet application  in 12 weeks or so

User · Answer

You can definitely get a good understanding of Java in 10 weeks  but as mentioned before  practice makes perfect  or at least better       A couple of starting places   The Java API will be your friend  http   java sun com j2se 1 5 0 docs api   Java has a lot of built-in functionality so try not to duplicate it  String functions and whatnot    Also  an IDE might make some things a little more complicated  but it ll also help you find your way around the API   Eclipse is a good place to start  and it s free  http   www eclipse org   Hope that helps a little

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For java  you also need to learn how to use an IDE and setup your environment and this kind of this to make java works     Then for J2ME  you ll need to know things about  embedded mobile systems      10 weeks with the tutorials would be ok but it also depends on what you re going to do in your j2me course     I would go head first in a j2me tutorial  assuming you know a minimum concerning variables functions and OO      good luck

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I can sympathise    having once been in a similar predicament  though I did at least have some background  I concur with  ShawnMilo regarding Head Fist Java  Also recommend Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days and  given that you say you have no programming background  I strongly urge you to look at The Oject Oriented Thought Process by Matt Weisfeld  I also concur with all the people on this thread who say that there s WAY more to programming than  simply  learning one language  especially if it s Java   Having said that  good luck and god speed   PS I d  1  Patrick McDonald for sense of humour  but I don t have enough rep   PPS And another virtual  1 for  Robin  I was wondering when the Four Yorkshiremen would get in on this thread

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I worked with some self-taught programmers who read stuff like  learn javascript in 0 01 days   Everyday was worth it s share of thedailywtf com   Besides  at a job inteview you get asked  how much javascript experience do you have    your answer  0 01 days    so good luck but I hope our path won t cross before a few more years

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It depends on how hard you want to work  but yes it s possible   The problem you are going to have is that you have to learn to program along with learning java   These are two very different things   Programming is knowing how to read and write logic and Java is a language you write it in    If you have a math or physics background  this is going to be a lot easier  as you are already exposed to thinking in such a manner     If you don t have books on beginning Java I would go buy one of those     I would also pick up the book Code  I would try and get through this in a few days  if not over the weekend if possible    Actually with 10 weeks I would do this first as it will be a foundation for what you ll need to know to program Java     With 10 weeks  you are going to have to pretty much study every night to get the hang of it by the time you go to class   My best advice is that when you take the class  take lots of notes  and don t expect to understand everything   Most of what gets thrown at you there will probably go over your head at first and you ll forget   That s ok   After the class if over  go back and review the notes etc until it starts to make sense

User · Answer

Doable  yes   But you d missing out on a lot of theory behind programming so even though you may know the language well enough to code in it  you won t know how to program well   I d suggest picking up a few beginner s books on object oriented design while you re at it   The best  for me at least  teaching and helping tools for a new language are tutorials and forums like this  don t forget to google first though  there are a lot of beginner questions answered with a simple search    Good luck

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I m computer science student who just finished my first Java course   I d say it s possible to learn Java on 10 weeks if you hard work on it  But you ll only get an intro  Programming is much more than just knowing the language  API  syntax etc     Best Java book ever  http   www amazon com Introduction-Java-Programming-Comprehensive-Version dp 0136012671 ref sr 1 1 ie UTF8 amp s books amp qid 1242328533 amp sr 8-1

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There are different schools of thought regarding how much time you need to become expert in programming  I m not going to add to it  I suggest if you have absolutely no programming experience  learn C first  Then move to Java  The following site is very good for learning java  http   www javapassion com

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I don t see why you couldn t do it  I am a book person  so pick a book and run through it  Set up some small projects and finish them  10 weeks is longer then I usually get to learn a new language   Have fun and hope you learn a lot   I would post the books I learned java with but they are at home and I ain t

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Can you learn to draw  sculpt  or paint in ten weeks   Anyone can learn to punch the keys to program  just as anyone can pick up a brush  but it takes time and talent to cultivate the artistry to develop   Do yourself a favor and put the time and effort in to learning  not cramming   The lessons you learn by a concerted effort to know how to develop will serve you much better than binging on it to meet some arbitrary date

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10 weeks  Are you crazy  the Java API is massive not to mention Java EE how could possibly get through that in 10 weeks  you could maybe get through 5  of that in a couple of months  I d say it would take at least a year to lean Java fundamentals for a newbie  I mean you can t just read a chapter on a subject and then think you understand it  You have to spend a good deal of time using that concept or part the API to at least commit it to memory never mind actually have a good grasp of it   Realistically I d say at least 2 maybe three years of programming to reach industry entry level standard  And that s if you really apply yourself

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As others have mentioned  10 weeks ought to be enough if you have a computer programming background   Closer to 6-8 weeks  if you re Jeff Atwood

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The main question is whether you ve done any programming in the past since that may be the main effort  I would suspect that if you had not  you could get by but not necessarily do well  You indicate that you didn t have any programming experience  so this is where you are going to have most problems and spend most of your time  Java would not necessarily be faster or slower to learn than other similar languages    Sun s Java tutorials are great  but unfortunately programming is one of the things where practice is necessary  and that depends on your free time  It s also necessary to stop and practice frequently rather than after reading half a book  If you devoted 10 weeks full time to it - yes  it s quite doable for some people  After all  college students become passable developers in one academic year where they take other unrelated courses    I would focus on figuring out Java fully first without trying for J2ME  Then you can make the switch   In addition  realize that there s a big difference between the language and the standard library  The important thing is to learn the language  There are certain standard library calls that everyone uses and are critical to learn  but they re not part of the language  However  you ll never really know the entire library  Though you ll learn from exprience   It s more important to learn how to find the functionality that you re looking for then to know exactly what it is or where to find it  The important thing is to avoid reinventing the wheel    Also  realize that you may only be a passable developer at the end  Experience takes time and often can t be hastened    In addition  even if you learn to program you will miss some of the critical general CS knowledge like data structures and algorithms  Programming books rarely teach that  you will have to learn that yourself  see  for example  the TopCoder tutorials

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Okay  there are a lot of people here saying   yes  and  yes  but it will be hard  so I ll differ   No   The problem isn t  learning Java  in 10 weeks  because I think that by the time 10 weeks is up  you ll be able to program some things and have an idea of what to do to solve some simple things   But that won t make you ready for a J2ME fast track course   Fast track courses tend to be for people that have a strong background in the prerequisites   You might be able to do many of the things as you are going along  but without the background to understand the why of what you re doing  it will seem like a lot of semi-random things to memorize by rote  and will likely quickly vanish   Basically  I think it just takes time  time to let lessons sink in  time to experiment and fail a few times so that the why suddenly jumps out at you     Ultimately  I suspect that you could get through it  but that you would not end up being very proficent at all    the final two paragraphs of Uri s post say it all    I don t want to be a complete downer  and I definitely hope you do well and succeed   but I would hate to bet money on it      Understand  I don t know you from Adam   so I m making statements based on my experience with how it was for me  and people I ve worked with   so this isn t a slight against you   just an observation that this is a very big meal you re setting down to eat

User · Answer

My experience in Java programming for beginner is not difficult to learn  however it is really depended on how your object-oriented programming skills are    As you posed that you had no programming experience   I guess that I recommend a web site  http   www exampledepot com    and type any java keyword such as Swing  FileInputStream  it provides a lot of practical examples that you can apply into a project     Please  buy a java book  Sams java 6 in 24 hours  as reference  It will give you really basic skills for java within a short time  and I sure you will have enough time to learn about the java and J2ME within 10 weeks    Good Luck   Tiger

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OK  based on some of the previous answers  I am expecting to get downvoted for this  but  I think you are delusional to think you can learn  on your own  how to program in Java in 10 weeks with no programming background   No person  with NO programming experience  other than some sort of prodigy  is going to learn to program in Java or almost any language in 10 weeks   For clarity  copying and running hello world from a book does not make you a programmer   Hell  it will most likely take days just to get that working in some IDE   Now  can you study and potentially pass some test   Maybe  but that depends on the depth and format of the test   If I asked if I could become a doctor in 10 weeks  I would get laughed at for asking  so I am somewhat surprised at the answers that indicate that it is somewhat possible   I can stick a bandaid on my daughter now  but it hardly makes me a medical professional  it just means I managed their version of hello world

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I have to say that you are taking on a lot in just 10 weeks  I just finished a semester of Java programming at Indiana University Southeast  and I don t think I have begun to scratch the surface yet  Java is a very strict language in that its syntax is very tough to get a handle on if you have no programming experience at all  I will offer these pieces of advice go to www bluej org and down load there  Java compiler it is said to be the easiest to work with and that most college s use this  It is also  what we learned on and from what I know now I can say  they are right  Java is an object oriented language  and Bluej gives you a great understanding of objects  They also show you how to design  classes  methods  array  array list  hash maps  all of that is on this site and it is free  I hope this helps and good luck with your challange

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The main problem you re having is that you re learning programming for the first time with Java and I think Java isn t the best language to start    I suppose that you re addressing a work project  Is this the case  That pressure might make things worse  Depending on how complex the project is you might success but learning Java in 10 weeks without background knowledge is another issue

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Learning to program for the first time is kind of like learning a foreign language  You will easily be able to recreate the phrases you are taught  but you will lack the understanding of the context for why it is done that way  and will thus be unable to solve new problems effectively  It simply takes time    If you re a first-time programmer  I really can t recommend Java  Python would be much better  disclaimer  Python fan-boy  but for good reasons     However  I don t think a beginner could do much better than Head First Java

[java] How Long Does it Take to Learn Java for a Complete Newbie?

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