About Java with The jar Bar & Yucca Nel
In 2007 I started learning Java and Object Orientated programming. Java is now my main language I (Yucca Nel) use as a developer.
Java is for all developers
Well almost! Java enjoys an abundance of frameworks that cater for a full array (pun intended) of developers including web, database, business logic, mobile (not so much anymore as J2ME is dead) and desktop application developers.
Java SE vs Java EE
Java is mainly divided into two versions. JSE is aimed at at a regular user who must do all the work that is done by default by it's counterpart JEE container(s). A JSE developer must do things manually like thread management, concurrency control and typically make use of additional frameworks like Hibernate for database management, etc. Enterprise computing has different needs and Java EE mandates that specification servers meet standards that are set by the spec and typically cater for large scale, distributed and transactional projects. A JEE complaint server has guaranteed support for things like, database access, transaction management, web networking, mailing, etc.
The jar Bar is JSE
thejarbar.org is pure JSE. I don't need a RBDMS like MySQL as this site has little need for a database at present. However, Maven ensures that The jar Bar can easily make use of frameworks like Hibernate should I need. The jar Bar is built with Java Server Facelets (JSF2) and deployed on Tomcat (a Java SE) server.
Java is Object Orientated
Java encapsulates data into objects. Treating data as an object is far easier than procedural data. A java developer writes class files to represent Objects. These files act as templates for the objects they become when the Java Virtual Machine has loaded them.
Java is strongly typed.
To use a variable in Java, you must declare it's type beforehand.
And Java...
Has all the common programming features like: functions (called methods), logical and conditional operators, etc.
For more on Java
There is an abundance of related , books, plugins, frameworks and tools for Java. If you are new to Java, please explore the links below. Maven is an extremely useful tool used to manage JSE and JEE projects and can easily be used to incorporate a multitude of technologies into most projects. Stackoverflow, and Javaranch are the friendliest communities I know on where to ask almost any development related questions. JBoss and apache do a lot of development on Java support technologies like plugins and frameworks and have their own discussion forums to get advice related to these sub projects. Oreilly are the masters of literature when it comes to programming and have books for almost anything development related (not just Java). Explore the links below for more on Java.