Getting started in Java

Dear Melanie,
Although I can't give you much advise, a good starting point could be: http://developer.java.sun.com/.
Here you will find a large collection of all things Java related; the SDK, tutorials and documentation.
Hope this helps a little,Greetings Bodosan

Echoing the information in Answer #1, http://java.sun.com is definitely the way to go. Specifically, check out http://web2.java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/ for Sun's standard tutorial (actually pretty good). After that, I would recommend O'Reilly's"Java in a Nutshell" as a great reference book.

Perhaps the most effective means to really learn Java (or any other language, for that matter) is to use it as a means toward an end -- come up with a project that you need to do or have always wanted to do in your spare time and start figuring out how to solve it with Java. You'll find that this task-oriented learning style is hands-down the most effective.

Best of luck!

Hello Melanie,
I am a java student at the moment and have found that this on-line book has been a great help-http://www.eckel.djackson.cjb.net/
The first answers are very good advice, the java site helped greatly. If you can download the free java developement kits (jdk) with the documentation, they would enable you to compile and run java programs. If you are using windows use DOS & EDIT to write your files, then type 'javac filename.java' to compile, then 'java filename' to run the program. You may have to change your path to the jdk bin file in your autoexec.bat. Please contact if you need more help.

Hope this helps.

Hello Melanie,
I am a java student at the moment and have found that this on-line book has been a great help-http://www.eckel.djackson.cjb.net/
The first answers are very good advice, the java site helped greatly. If you can download the free java developement kits (jdk) with the documentation, they would enable you to compile and run java programs. If you are using windows use DOS & EDIT to write your files, then type 'javac filename.java' to compile, then 'java filename' to run the program. You may have to change your path to the jdk bin file in your autoexec.bat. Please contact if you need more help.

Hope this helps.