“Adherence to dogmatic beliefs tends to be quite inflammatory” – John Sonmez
One of the best points made in Jon Sonmez’s book Soft Skills is that we are all religious about technology.
Another thing that I have noticed is that both in religion and in technology, often the most inflammatory of disagreements tend to be between relatively small differences.
Take a look at any major religion and the history of in fighting within it’s various denominations. Arguments about technology also tend to be stronger between technologies that based on much the same ideas.
John Sonmez used to feel that Java was a dirty language compared with the elegance of C#, but once he got used to it he found that it wasn’t so bad after all. In fact he learned to appreciate why a lot of developers prefer it over C#. He learned to try things out before judging them.
I originally learned Java at University in 1999, but never used it since. Chance was the major reason why I began my career programming in VB.NET and then C#.
Java is a much more mature and sophisticated language than it was in its early days, and it is used throughout the world much more widely than languages such as C#.
I am setting prejudices aside, and looking to learn Java not just to be a better Java developer, but to become a better developer.
If like me you enjoy learning with Pluralsight, there two different learning paths available for learning Java:
Jump Into Java
This path is intended for both novice developers and developers familiar with other languages who are looking to get started in Java.
This features 13 courses and lasts just under 39 hours at standard playback speed.
Java
This is the latest learning path from Pluralsight featuring 4 beginner courses, 3 intermediate courses and 5 advanced courses. It lasts 45 hours in total (at standard speed) from beginner through to advanced.
No previous experience is required, and all necessary tools and concepts are introduced throughout the path.
Some of the courses in this learning are newer than the courses in the Jump Into Java learning path. For example the first course on Java Fundamentals: The Java Programming Language came out in December 2015, whereas the introductory course for the Jump into Java learning path was published in November 2011.
For this reason, I have decided to choose the new Java learning path as the learning path for me to complete by October this year.
I took the assessment for this and came out 58th percentile. It recommended that I start at the beginner level.
As it has been so many years since I have programmed in Java, starting at the beginning sounded like good advice. I have reviewed the first couple of modules of the first course for you. Unfortunately I found the material to be so basic that I just didn’t feel I was getting value out of the time I was investing. I had a rethink.
What I am actually interested in learning is Android. I thought that it would be good to learn Java well first, and then Android, but I have changed my mind on that.
Android
This is quite a long learning path, with 14 courses amounting to 43 hours and 58 minutes in total. However this is still slightly shorter than the new Java learning path. I have already reviewed a couple of courses from this learning path already:
By the end of October, I aim to have studied and reviewed all 14 courses in this learning path.
Zombie Code Kill 