Resuming classes now at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Part-Time Engineering Graduate Program for Computer Science. I've been off for more than a year, so it will be hard to get back into the swing of things for this upcoming summer semester.
To compound the stressful challenge, many of the courses are now requiring Java for their software programming assignments projects, and I'd rather not take the Java course JHU offers because it doesn't count towards my degree. It would just be intolerable to spend my summer taking a class that didn't count. Then again, it would be worse if I failed my required class because I lacked sufficient Java knowledge. And though I have obsessive perfectionistic tendencies, I am also very lazy, so the odds of me self-learning Java are not high. But you know, writing this little factoid pisses me off and is actually highly motivating! (I guess my self-help blogging strategy is paying off :-)
Fortunately, I was not without some motivation earlier and I've been going through the Java textbook the summer Java instructor is using in preparation for the other class I intend to take. Out of the 1000+ page textbook I'm on page 140. Ugh. Still got a long way to go, since the first few chapters were easy stuff general to most programming languages. But the pressuer is on. My other class starts in 3 weeks! Since I'm no longer going to take the Java class, I wish now I would have bought the Java 1.5.0 version of the textbook instead of the older 1.4.2 API edition. Oh well. I'm using the 1.5 java compiler and hitting Sun's API documentation so I guess that will be sufficient supplement if the assignments require 1.5.0 techniques.
I started to use the Eclipse IDE, which offers cool autocompletion features, but it was slowing me down way to much, so I ended at the command line. I'm usually working in some interpreted language like PERL/PHP/BASH so I had to make myself a simple one button 'javarun' routine to retain sanity while I beat my head against the Java syntax/class wall. I need to go place ice on my head and go to bed, but before I go, here are some Java links I found useful.
