Minstrel Mike's Blog

Finally got done with chapter nine of "Java Programming for Kids, Parents and Grandparents": Saving the Game Score (p.124/136="explicit"/PDF page number).

Took me a while to "get around" to working on it, in sufficient sessions to work out the exercises. No particular reason, just didn't DO it often enough!


Continue reading "JP4KP&G: Chapter 9. ... »

Well, finally, here's the next post about my self-inflicted Java™ tutorials: JP4KP&G: Chapter 8: Program Errors - Exceptions.

This seemed to be a relatively "short" chapter (11 pages), compared to the previous chapter (ch.7, Tic-Tac-Toe, 19 pages), seemed LESS than half the time to read. But it took me about five and a half (5.5) hours over the past week to get the "Practice" exercises done.


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Updated 2008-01-08 21:03!

So, FINALLY, back to "Java Programming for Kids, Parents and Grandparents" (subsequently, "initialized" here as "JP4KP&G").

Just to recap a bit ...

I recently acquired an electronic copy of "Head First Java," part of the "Head First" series from O'Reilly, which seemed like an interesting way to try to teach stuff from books.

The "Head First" book seemed like it might be a good way to jump-start my only "formal" New Year's Resolution: to Kick-Start My Ass Back into Code-Slinging by re-kindling my self-exploration of Java (the programming language, I hate coffee). But first, I feel as if I should finish my previous Java book, since I made at least some progress with it.

So, in doing so (back to JP4KP&G), I decided to back-track just a little: "Chapter 7 The Tic-Tac-Toe Applet". As far as I can recall (and from my previous notes), earlier this year (still 2008, just barely), I'd gotten as far as Chapter 9, but since the "Tic-Tac-Toe" applet was the first "substantially non-trivial" example, I decided to start from there.

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Now I'm trying to get "re-started" in my languishing "teach-yourself" experiment in Java programming ...

First, I need the latest (why not?) JRE; so far, so good: version 6 Update 11 downloaded (MB) and installed with no notable issues.

Next, the latest version of Eclipse (Ganymede SR1: v3.4.1) ... Again, so far, so good. Nothing to report.

Now, time for a little road-test: the ubiquitous "Hello, World!". Really, just to see if it all actually works at all.

Continue reading "Getting Re-Started with Java" »