I'm trying to learn Java but it just seem like there are too many parts to put together. You have JSP, Java EE, Java SE, Java ME etc.... I can get Netbeans to do basic but just taking a peek at spring framework it seem like a lot of work to get it to run in the ide from the numerous configuration .
I want to get into web programming and maybe mobile.
Any advice?
Another programming language?
Is java this complex or does it get easier?
Java as a language is certainly not too complicated. J2EE in its entirety is only just about feasible for a one-man team - but you rarely need the whole of J2EE.
It's perfectly reasonable for a one-man team to implement a medium-sized web application. I'm not saying one person could write GMail on their own, but you shouldn't be too scared of the technology stack - find the bits you actually need and concentrate on those. On the other hand, that in itself takes a fair amount of experience - I wouldn't really want to be starting off on an enterprise app (even a small one) on my own as a newcomer to Java.
Start small. Learn the core (the language, IO, collections) - and then start with small projects. Work out whether you want to be in mobile, desktop, server or whatever - don't try all of them simultaneously. Gradually you'll build up your experience.
It's not that Java-the-language is complex, it's that vast libraries and frameworks exist that can help you do your work. This is true for many programming languages. Look at CPAN for Perl, for example. What language to use depends in great part on what your goals are.
You can start simple and work your way up to larger and larger projects.
Java is by no means too complex for a one-man operation, but learning any form of full-formed web programming is a lot to learn when it's all new. If you were looking at .NET for the same purpose, there is a lot there too.
Unless you are doing huge-enterprise applications, ignore all of J2EE except for JSP and JMS and a very few other components. The lion's share of J2EE is only useful in the context of an enterprise application that needs to scale, and in fact can be harmful when used in smaller applications.
The frameworks such as Spring, Hibernate, Apache-*, Web Services, and so on help you do your job, but are yet more things to learn to do your job. There is a lot to learn.
Should you use Java? Well, quite a lot of development is done with LAMP (or WAMP): Linux (or Windows) + Apache-HTTPD + MySQL + PHP. With this, you don't need to worry about Java or .NET or any of those frameworks. LAMP/WAMP works very well for a wide class of applications.
Java and .NET on the server are (sort of) more appropriate for larger services, but once you are familiar with them, they work just fine for smaller services as well.
You have to decide what your exact goals are, then look at how people have implemented the kind of thing that you're looking at doing. This will help you figure out what technologies are the most necessary for the niches you're looking at going into.
You need to learn to pick your battles. Covering the whole J2EE is a massive task and, for most, unnecessary to begin with. I think a common mistake for beginner programmers is that they think they need to learn everything. You'll find your time much more productive if you focus on the core language constructs to begin with, and focus on either web or mobile programming.
You'll be extremely surprised (and pleased) at how much you can carry over from one area to the next. Once you know the language, the different libraries for different platforms are just tools...Stick with Java. It is a good language to learn.
You don't have to learn all of Java and its libraries. Just learn what you need for the job at hand. You will find there are plenty of options, but you don't have to get the best option every time.
If your base programming concepts are clear no language should be difficult for you. I have switched over from vb 6 to java to c# to objective c now. What really makes a coders life easy is the IDE, debugging tools, documentation and lot of blog posts which google can search :-) regarding one man team my personal view is I am at my best when left to code and research alone with the help of google and stack overflow ofcourse :-) so I do think in programming large sized teams often lead to more screw ups than results
Java -- the language -- is one of the simplest strongly typed languages in existence. Vastly simpler than C++ or even its close cousin C#, I would argue.
The standard APIs/libraries really are huge, but nobody learns the whole thing. You're suffering from the intimidation all beginners feel when they look at something that big and new, but this will pass as you just do stuff. First, you need to learn the standard utility stuff -- the collections in java.util, mostly -- and then, for basic web dev, probably next the JDBC library and Java Servlets and JSP. And that's it.
As an alternate tact here...
Another problem you will encounter in Java is Choice. You have a LOT of it in terms of frameworks and technologies etc.
My best advice is search around for about a day if you're so inclined to find what technologies attract you, or who's arguments sway you. Then, pick one. ANY one. Really, it doesn't matter, especially for a first project. They all have learning curves, they all have strengths and weaknesses, they all have fans and foes.
The key though, is once you have chosen, STICK WITH IT. You will inevitably stumble upon some problem, you will pose this problem to someone else, someplace else, and they will say "oh, you should have used QED instead of KnifeForkSpoon". And you will second guess yourself, go off and hear about the wonders of QED, and all of the kittens born under it and hungry children fed by it. If you succumb to that siren song of "greener grass", your project will flail. (Not fail, flail.)
Don't be wooed, don't fall for it. Just fix your problem and move on. At the end, and you're on a new project, THEN go and look for the more bestest greatness silver bullet.
As an aside, if I were just getting in to web programming today in Java, I would humbly offer this simple recipe:
This uses the most fundamental, yet functional facilities for web apps in Java today, lots of applicability, and solves the major issues of a web app without covering them up with thick, impenetrable layers.
You will learn a lot using these "crude" tools.
Can I take "get into web programming" to mean that you're just learning web programming in general? If that's true, if you have the time you might consider setting Java aside temporarily and giving LAMP/WAMP a closer look as Eddie suggested. (Though I'd personally use Perl instead of PHP. PHP is sexier resume fodder and lets you do some very cool things on the front end, but in my experience, when it comes to writing server-side code Perl simply blows PHP's doors off. And I've heard that the HTML::Mason extension puts Perl on pretty even footing with PHP's front-end niftiness, but I haven't used it myself.)
I've made a living writing writing web apps in Java and web apps in Perl. I'm fond of both languages, but as a learning tool, I'd put Perl well ahead of Java. As you're finding out, Java's a bulky bastich. Part of that is, as others have mentioned, a function of Java being a mature language with a variety of extensions that are unlikely to apply to your immediate needs. But even stripped down, you'll still need to deal with quite a bit of overhead before you can even get your first "Hello World" web app to run. Comparatively, you'll get rolling much quicker with Perl.
(In fact, Java tends to be pretty verbose in general compared with other languages. That's not necessarily a bad thing; my one big complaint with Perl is you often encounter code that leverages various shortcuts and side effects to do an unholy ton of work in just a few lines. This code is often brilliant, elegant, compact, and utterly bloody unintelligible to a non-expert. Terseness is not a virtue for the poor idiot who has to modify code six months after it was written -- especially when you wind up being the poor idiot in question.)
And as a way of learning web programming, Java's sophistication can actually work against it. As a professional, I'm glad Java's web-based tools automagically take care of a lot of grunt work for me, like session management. But I didn't completely understand what it was doing until I was thrown into a Perl-only environment and had to deal with all that stuff myself.
I guess it depends on why you're doing this and how much time you can devote to it. If time is limited and you're looking for something that will appeal to prospective employers, then yeah, Java's an excellent choice, and you've gotten some solid advice in this thread about how to get started using it.
But if you do have the time, I highly recommend giving old-school Perl/CGI programming a sniff. It ain't a particularly marketable skillset anymore, but you'll learn things worth knowing.
Java is not a complex language, altough it looks frightening at first.
I started learning Java from home, not a school, at 15 years of age (yes, yes, I know that's nothing to brag about) trough a book. It's a norwegian book, so I won't link to amazon;)
After reading/hacking trough half the book I found out I was better off ditching the book and looking for more stuff online. Google really IS awesome!
I would often read about all the fancy features of the JVM, frameworks, third-party libraries, JSRs and so on, and how much better my life would be with them all, but I just ignored them all. Yes I tried, but found it too confusing to learn Java and a framework that wasn't really necessary, at the same time.
Some people gave me hell for not using insertRandomLibraryName() or insertFancyFrameworkName(), and told me all about how much time and effort i would save, but I'm glad I didn't listen.
Now times have changed, and I still learn new things, or easier ways to do old things, every day. And I'm glad I took the time to learn the language itself before all the fancy stuff.
Also, don't use a notepad for writing code, use an IDE from the beginning. The only one I've ever really used is NetBeans, so that's the only thing I can recommend, but I sure am really happy with it!
As to Java SE, ME and EE, start with SE, and you'll propably find that it's enough for now. You don't have to use EE to write for the web, SE is fully capable of webernet stuff;D