RubyGeek

In college, about 7 years ago (yikes) I learned Java near the end of my year. I loved it. I got an A in the class and was all set to get a java job after college. Uhh.. how AM I supposed to get 3 years experience?!?! … so thats when I picked up PHP and went down the web programming path..

At my current job, a Perl job, they have a study group for the Java certification. I thought I’d join them, taking every advantage for learning that I can. I am not 100% sure I will take the test, but it will motivate me I think to get back into Java. I joke with my Java programmer friends “I need to relearn java, so I can convert all your java apps to ruby someday.. haha” .. I don’t even know if i will like doing Java.

My husband made me throw out 80% of my computer books that were out of date! “GASP! what? throw out DOS for Dummies!?!?! VB 5????” … I threw out some java books. A friend of mine said they although java has some new features in the past years the core library is probably still about the same. But really I don’t have time to waste with old books, so I decided if I should EVER want to do Java.. I’ll get some new ones.

I was looking over the books in the java category at bookpool - there are so many! Does anybody have any suggestions? I think I have a pretty firm grasp on objects, interfaces, etc all that stuff. I just need a reference book or something to get me re-familiarized with the language and learn some of the java idioms and conventions.