Sams Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours, 7th Edition (2014)
Appendixes
Appendix B. Where to Go from Here: Java Resources
After you have finished this book, you might be wondering where you can turn to improve your Java programming skills. This appendix lists some books, websites, Internet discussion groups, and other resources you can use to expand your Java knowledge.
Other Books to Consider
Sams Publishing and other publishers offer several useful books on Java programming, including some that follow up on the material covered in this book. Use these ISBN numbers at bookstores if they don’t currently carry the book that you’re looking for:
Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days, by Rogers Cadenhead (me! me! me!), ISBN: 0-672-33710-X. Although some of the material in the first seven chapters of this book is redundant, it covers Java in more depth and adds a lot of advanced topics. If you’re ready to make another 504-hour commitment to learning Java, this should be a suitable book.
The Java EE 6 Tutorial: Basic Concepts, Fourth Edition, by Eric Jendrock and others, ISBN 0-13708-185-5. This book introduces the Java Enterprise Edition (JEE), an extended form of the Java class library for use in large businesses in large-scale computing environments.
Java Phrasebook, by Timothy R. Fisher. ISBN 0-67232-907-7. A collection of more than 100 snippets of code for use in your own Java projects, created by a professional programmer and Java Developer’s Journal contributor.
Agile Java Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse by Anil Hemrajani. ISBN 0-672-32896-8. A book for Java Enterprise Edition that shows how to use the Spring framework, Hibernate library, and Eclipse IDE to reduce the complexity of enterprise application programming.
Android Programming Unleashed by B.M. Harwani. ISBN 0-13-315175-1. An extensive programming tutorial for Android versions 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and 4.1 (Jelly Bean), this book covers the fundamentals of writing Android apps in Java, the building blocks of app design, app deployment, and advanced topics that include animation, using Google Maps, and sending SMS messages and emails.
Chapters and other material from many Sams Publishing Java books have been made freely available on www.informit.com, a website for information technology professionals that is produced in collaboration with Sams.
The Sams Publishing website, www.informit.com/sams, is a good place to see what’s coming from Sams Publishing and other imprints of the Pearson Technology Group.
Oracle’s Official Java Site
The Java software division of Oracle maintains three websites of interest to programmers and users of its language.
The Oracle Technology Network for Java Developers, which is published at www.oracle.com/technetwork/java, is the first place to visit when looking for Java-related information. New versions of the Java Development Kit and other programming resources are available for download, along with documentation for the entire Java class library. There’s also a bug database, a user group directory, and support forums.
Java.net at www.java.net is a large community of Java programmers. You can start your own weblog focused on the language, create a new open-source project and host it for free on the site, and collaborate with other programmers.
Java.com at www.java.com promotes the benefits of the language to consumers and nonprogrammers. You can download the Java runtime environment from the site, which enables users to run programs created with Java on their computers. There’s also a gallery showing examples of where Java is being used today.
Java Class Documentation
Perhaps the most useful part of Oracle’s Java site is the documentation for every class, variable, and method in the Java class library. Thousands of pages are available online at no cost to you to show you how to use the classes in your programs.
To visit the class documentation for Java 8, go to http://download.java.net/jdk8/docs/api.
Other Java Websites
Because so much of the Java phenomenon was originally inspired by its use on web pages, a large number of websites focus on Java and Java programming.
This Book’s Official Site
This book’s official website is www.java24hours.com and is described fully in Appendix C, “This Book’s Website.”
Workbench
I also publish a weblog, Workbench, which covers Java, Internet technology, computer books, and similar topics along with other subjects. You can find it at http://workbench.cadenhead.org.
Slashdot
The technology news site Slashdot has been a go-to place for programmers and other computer industry professionals since 1997. The site selects the best user-submitted stories for its front page and allows users to rank comments so you can filter out the noise. To see its latest Java-related stories, visit www.slashdot.org/tag/java.
Other Java Weblogs
Hundreds of other weblogs cover Java programming, either as their primary focus or part of more diverse subject matter. The search engine IceRocket provides a tagged list that indexes the latest weblogs to write about Java at www.icerocket.com.
WordPress.com, a host for thousands of blogs, categorizes the latest Java-related posts on its sites at http://en.wordpress.com/tag/java.
InformIT
The tech reference site InformIT, available at www.informit.com, is a comprehensive resource supported by the publisher of this book. The site devotes sections to more than a dozen subjects related to software development and the Internet. InformIT’s Java section includes how-to articles and a beginner’s reference.
Stack Overflow
The online community Stack Overflow is a place where programmers can ask questions and rate the answers provided by other users. The site is tagged so you can narrow your search to the language or topic that’s of interest. To see Java-related questions, visithttp://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/java.
JavaWorld Magazine
A magazine that has been around since the inception of the language, JavaWorld, publishes frequent tutorial articles along with Java development news and other features. There’s also video and audio podcasts. Visit www.javaworld.com.
Developer.com’s Java Directory
Because Java is an object-oriented language, it’s easy to use resources created by other developers in your own programs. Before you start a Java project of any significance, you should scan the Web for resources you might be able to use in your program.
A good place to start is Developer.com’s Java directory. This site catalogs Java programs, programming resources, and other information at www.developer.com/java.
For a more interactive place to seek guidance from Java programmers, try Twitter, the popular microblog service used by millions of people to send short messages to their friends and others who follow them.
The #java hashtag identifies messages related to Java—though some might reference the island of Java or coffee because hashtags are informal and user-created.
To search Twitter for the most recent messages about Java, load http://search.twitter.com in a web browser and search for #java.
Job Opportunities
If you’re one of those folks learning Java as a part of your plan to become a captain of industry, several of the resources listed in this appendix have a section devoted to job opportunities. Check out some of the Java-related job openings that might be available.
The job posting search engine Indeed has a section devoted to Java jobs. Visit www.indeed.com/q-Java-jobs.html to see the latest help-wanted ads for programmers proficient in the language. Another good job site for Java programmers is Dice, which lists Java employment postings atwww.dice.com/job/results/java.
Although it isn’t specifically a Java employment resource, the CareerBuilder website enables you to search the job classifieds of more than two dozen job databases, including newspaper classifieds and many other sources. You can search more than 100,000 job postings using keywords such as Java, Internet, or snake charmer. Go to www.careerbuilder.com.