The Beans of Java

For this years Christmas I asked for some more books that focus more on the heavier side of programming as to last years book list of web development learning. I'm sure I don't know all there is to web development but sometimes you need to change things up a bit and get your feet wet. Change is good and I love change, because for myself, it helps me think better, even if it's just by changing the position of my stuffed beeker toy by my desk.

For Christmas I got three more programming books, Head First Java, 2nd Edition, Ivor Horton's Beginning Visual C++ 2008, and Beginning JavaServer Pages. The first book I cracked open was the Java book because I always had an interest in learning Java, but was always kind of intimidated by the language for a reason that I cant explain. Funny thing is that after reading a good bit, I actually understood what the book was talking about and it was sticking in my brain.

So far I think the hardest part was gathering the JDK (Java Development Kit) and getting it up and running which can be downloaded here. After everything is downloaded and installed you will probably need to add the jdk path to the system variables. Travel to the following directory C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_06\bin\ and copy the full path currently in the address bar of windows explorer and just hold it on the clip board a bit. Now, click start and right-click on My Computer and choose properties from the drop down. Click the Advanced tab and select the system variables button and look for the variable named path or Path or even PATH. Click on the path variable and then click the edit button. Now, at the very end of the value listing add a semicolon ; and paste (control+v) into the value. Click OK on all the dialog boxes to submit your changes. It's now time to check to see if the JDK is running, so click start and choose the run box. Within the run box type cmd and click ok or hit enter on your keyboard. While inside the command window type javac and hit the enter key which should start a process and show a bunch of settings inside the command window. If this is what you see them everything is up and running and you are now ready to start programming in Java. Yay!

So I don't know why but I have always had an interest in learning Java Programming but would have never went ahead and bought a book on the language myself.