Book Image

Transitioning to Java

By : Ken Fogel
Book Image

Transitioning to Java

By: Ken Fogel

Overview of this book

This comprehensive guide will help non-Java developers already using different languages transition from their current language to all things Java. The chapters are designed in a way that re-enforces a developer’s existing knowledge of object-oriented methodologies as they apply to Java. This book has been divided into four sections, with each section touching upon different aspects that’ll enable your effective transition. The first section helps you get to grips with the Java development environment and the Maven build tool for modern Java applications. In the second section, you’ll learn about Java language fundamentals, along with exploring object-oriented programming (OOP) methodologies and functional programming and discovering how to implement software design patterns in Java. The third section shows you how to code in Java on different platforms and helps you get familiar with the challenges faced on these platforms. In the fourth section, you’ll find out how you can manage and package your Java code. By the end of this Java programming book, you’ll have learned the core concepts of Java that’ll help you successfully transition from a different language to Java.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
1
Part 1:The Java Development Environment
5
Part 2:Language Fundamentals
15
Part 3:GUI and Web Coding in Java
19
Part 4:Packaging Java Code

Creating documentation

Having been a computer science instructor for 31 years, I can tell you that the one task most students put off for as long as possible is documenting their code. I have learned of companies that forbid their developers to comment in their code. These companies believe that code should be self-documenting. If you cannot understand the purpose of the code from how it is written, then it has been written poorly. This is a big mistake. Students doing internships at such companies report spending an inordinate amount of time trying to understand the company’s code base.

Documenting or commenting in code is not about explaining or apologizing for writing bad code. Code carries out tasks and the task should be obvious from the code itself. What is never obvious is why the code has been constructed in a certain way and how it may fit in with the rest of the program. One question to ask yourself is whether the programmer who takes over this code base when you...