Sources for learning to Code in Java?

[Naruzeldamaster]

I've decided that I want to learn how to program in Java. I tried C++ when I was 15 ish and my brain wasn't 'ready' for it. But now I feel like I am.
For a multitude of reasons, but one of which is because I want to turn one of my stories into an RPG Maker game.
I also want to make mods for a game called Hytale but I'll wait until I'm far more experienced first.

Now I know this is a bizarre question to ask in a (mainly) writing themed forum, but does anyone have any ideas?

 

[pmmg]

W3schools was one I used way back when.

Even though everyone said Java was easy, I never quite got it. I had an easier time with other languages, all of which are not in use today.

You could look at Udemy.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

W3schools was one I used way back when.

Even though everyone said Java was easy, I never quite got it. I had an easier time with other languages, all of which are not in use today.

You could look at Udemy.

For my experience, I KIND OF figured out C++ way back when (as mentioned in another thread) but I never got far enough to produce a game.
All three of the tools I want to use use Java though, so that's what has me wanting to learn it.
I don't know if I can do the art part of things (for any of my projects) but I feel like I could tackle the coding.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

A lot of people are saying Java is 'slower' but there are plenty of games made in java that run fine.

 

[pmmg]

I never made any games, though I did use to make Quake maps.

I was creating Apps for Verizon. If you happen to have a wire connected to a telephone pole any where from New Jersey to North Carolina along the east coast, I helped make the program that records it, and sends you a bill (assuming its still in use)

It was still clunky when we left, but they cancelled our contract. Pity that, we got it to like 95%, but could not go back and fix bugs cause they did not renew our contract. If we would have gotten one more year, I would have walked out with a good skill for coding. I was almost there. But Java...it always made me ask for help.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

I never made any games, though I did use to make Quake maps.

There are plenty of what you called 'tools' (like RPG Maker, RPG maker is just the mainstream one) for making games, maybe that's the perfect chance to give Java (or something else) another go. Heck, even Unity is fairly flexible (though more expensive than the other options). Outside of Unity, there's click team fusion, and many others.

I was creating Apps for Verizon. If you happen to have a wire connected to a telephone pole any where from New Jersey to North Carolina along the east coast, I helped make the program that records it, and sends you a bill (assuming its still in use)

It was still clunky when we left, but they cancelled our contract. Pity that, we got it to like 95%, but could not go back and fix bugs cause they did not renew our contract. If we would have gotten one more year, I would have walked out with a good skill for coding. I was almost there. But Java...it always made me ask for help.

I don't know if they're still using the same program, but that's pretty cool.

I feel like if I ever make a game, I'll make the first one 'free' but like, make it a 'buy me a coffee' type thing. Where you can choose how much you pay for it.

I have a scrapped 'plot bunny' that'd be perfect for a game like that, nice and short, not terribly deep of a story (though with some depth character wise) one of those 'beat it in a few hours' types of games.

 

[pmmg]

Actually, it was pretty cool. I wish we had continued. I was the SQL expert, another guy was the main coder, but I got finished early, so I was helping him and learning the skill...then the carpet got pulled out from under us. Pity. I might still be there if that had not happened.

The language though, was ASP, which is not in use today. We also did some Perl, but not too much. I made a number of the screen pages, but if I got stuck, the other dude would straighten it out. For Java, I got stuck every time I had to make an array and have it do something (like math). I did not find it easy. ASP, I understood.

How many telephone poles were there in the database? About 1.7 million. It was a lot of data.

I could say, I once climbed a tower to install a laser that was hitting a receiver all the way out to the horizon, and people would say...wow, that sounds cool. That was not cool. It was a lot work for a small thing. Coding the app was in fact cool to me.

 

[Prince of Spires]

O'Reilly books are a pretty good starting point (like the Head First Java, 3rd Edition guide). But I'm sure there are others. I tried the C# one, and I had some fun doing so.

Best way to learn how to program in my experience is to have a real world problem you want to solve using programming.

As a side note, yes, C++ can be faster than Java, since it's a lower level programming language. Programming straight into assembly would be faster still. But the difference these days is so minimal with all the resources computers have at their disposal, that the benefits of a modern programming language outweight the downsides. So don't worry about the performance of the language you're picking, unless you're writing massive and very speciallized programs. It mattered when RAM size was measured in KB and CPU speeds in MHz.

Also, most programming knowledge will be transferrable (within reason) between languages. So if you learn one and you find that you need another, you can generally migrate to that language with only a little studying and learning a new syntax. The hard part of coding will remain more or less similar.

 

[Naruzeldamaster]

O'Reilly books are a pretty good starting point (like the Head First Java, 3rd Edition guide). But I'm sure there are others. I tried the C# one, and I had some fun doing so.

Best way to learn how to program in my experience is to have a real world problem you want to solve using programming.

As a side note, yes, C++ can be faster than Java, since it's a lower level programming language. Programming straight into assembly would be faster still. But the difference these days is so minimal with all the resources computers have at their disposal, that the benefits of a modern programming language outweight the downsides. So don't worry about the performance of the language you're picking, unless you're writing massive and very speciallized programs. It mattered when RAM size was measured in KB and CPU speeds in MHz.

Also, most programming knowledge will be transferrable (within reason) between languages. So if you learn one and you find that you need another, you can generally migrate to that language with only a little studying and learning a new syntax. The hard part of coding will remain more or less similar.

Yeah Minecraft runs on Java (and soon it's rendering engine is going to move to Vulcan instead of Open GL) and depending on the specs of your machine it runs pretty beautifully. Though it is prone to noping the heck out and crashing if you stress it too much. (say, you make a super flat world with TNT and redstone blocks and then trigger one of the TNT's)

Hytale is a game similar to Minecraft (though made by an indie developer who worked on a Popular Mine Craft server) and it runs beautifully too.

RPG Maker games can be a bit dodgy depending on who makes them. But I've seen some high quality stuff come out of that engine even before they switched to Java Script (For a long while they used their own, custom language that was similar to visual basic) so no worries there.

The main hitch on an RPG Maker game is changing the menus to...not be RPG Maker menus, that's one of the things that separates a 'lesser' RPG maker game to the good ones.