This is just a page containing some of my thoughts about Java. Some of it's rubbish but you may find bits useful and interesting. I hope so. If you don't know anything about Java then I would recommend you get a book and learn it. It's quite easy to grasp and it's a lot of fun. Also, despite what a lot of people think, it's also very powerful. Anyway, you can use the buttons on the left to go direct to pages or you can just click on the up and down arrows to go through a page at a time. Enjoy.
Java was invented by Sun Microsystems a few years ago. It was designed to be a very secure and very portable language especially suited to Internet programming. One of the most exciting features of it is the ability to create applets which can run on web pages. Due to security restrictions the user can feel safe in the knowledge that no harm can come to their computer as a result of running one of these. Java programs come in the form of 'half-compiled' classes. These are supposed to be totally platform independent although there are a few exceptions. These classes are then interpreted by a machine dependent JVM (Java Virtual Machine). Java is an object oriented language very close to C++ although much easier to learn. I reckon that if you can program in any language at all you can learn Java in a week. That's about all it took me.
If you are already proficient in a decent programming language then learning Java is easy. Anybody familiar with C++ should be able to pick it up in a few days. There are loads of good books about at the moment. One I reccomend is called 'Teach Yourself Java in 21 days' by Lemay & Perkins. This covers pretty much everything you need to know starting from the basics of OOP going up to advanced techniques such as networking and advanced AWT things. I would suggest getting a good reference book as well if you are serious. The best ones are probably the official Sun ones. I think they're published by Addison-Wesley. If you're after a good IDE then I think you're out of luck. Microsoft Visual J++ is very good but, surprise surprise, it's very costly. As far as Linux goes there is one good one that I know of called FreeBuilder but I couldn't get it to work. I just stick to vi (actually elvis) and then compile and run using the JDK tools. Elvis 2.0 is very good because it has proper syntax highlighting and stuff and it is also very configurable. You can download it from SunSite or one of it's many mirrors.
Personally I'm not sure about the future of Java. Either it will boom or it will be forgotten. I think the former is probably the most probable. The thing that will make it popular is the fact that it is a pretty much platform independent language. I have run applications on my home PC running Linux and on the Sun workstations at University with little or no modification. There have been a few things that haven't worked but I think this was due to University using an older, buggy version of the JDK. Things are getting better all the time though and maybe one day it'll be perfect.
Before you start writing your fancy Java apps and applets there's a few things you need to do. First, download the JDK. If you use Windows you can get this from http://java.sun.com or if you use Linux you can get it from http://www. blackdown.org. Next you're going to need a good tutorial book. One I can recommend is 'Teach Yourself Java 1.1 in 21 Days' by Lemay & Perkins. This covers everything from the basics of OOP through to advanced topics such as networking. Once you get going properly you will find a good reference book essential. I think the best of these are the official Sun ones. They are somewhat expensive though but well worth the money. If you have any questions or problems with anything then don't hesitate to e-mail me. Good luck!