For Beginners: Java Learning Resources

I've published a few posts on using Groovy in soapUI; as much as I'd like to believe my directions and writing are so clear that no further knowledge is required, I know that's probably not the case-- at the very least, a basic understanding of objects, variables, and other Java programming concepts are necessary, which means that readers who are genuinely new to scripting may have difficulty following some of the material in the posts.  I do want this blog to be a resource for absolute beginners; I may tackle a Groovy tutorial in future posts, but for the time being I thought I'd recommend a few resources for learning Java that I've found helpful.

A logical first step, of course, are the Java Tutorials available online and for download in multiple formats (HTML, mobi, and epub) on Java's home site here.  For beginners or near beginners, the Getting Started, Learning the Java Language, and Essential Java Classes tutorials are recommended.

For third-party publications, I've looked at three notable books on Java, each of which uses a different approach to learning the language.  Learn to Program with Java by John Smiley (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1st Edition - 2002) has a very gentle learning curve and an interesting framing premise: the book purports to follow an introductory Java class (taught by the author himself) as they work through creating a practical working Java application.  Head First Java by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates (O'Reilly Media, 2nd Edition - 2005) takes a more irreverent approach, trying to inject a bit of humor into the topic.  Ultimately, it covers more material than the Smiley book, albeit at a faster pace with a more challenging learning curve.  Finally, there's Bruce Heckel's Thinking in Java (Prentice-Hall, 4th Edition - 2006); coming in at a breezy 1150 pages, this book is pretty in-depth, going beyond the language and syntax to explain what goes on "under the hood" in a Java program-- memory management, the timing of the creation of objects, etc.  This book covers everything you probably wanted to know about Java-- not to mention a lot of stuff you didn't know you wanted to know.  Generously, Mr. Heckel makes the 3rd edition of the book available for free online at his company's (MindView, Inc.) website here.  As I said, all of these books take very different approaches; if possible, try looking at a few sample pages of each to see which best matches your personality or learning style.

If you prefer learning via video, I highly, highly recommend Stanford University's Programming Methodology lecture series available on iTunes U.  Comprised of video recordings of an introductory computer science course, this one is easy to overlook due to its relatively nondescript title.  In fact, while the course is primarily intended to be an introduction to programming concepts in general (hence the name), Java is the language chosen to illustrate those concepts, so it turns out to be a pretty decent introduction to Java specifically.  The lecturer, Professor Mehran Sahami, seems to have genuine affection for his job-- he injects his lessons with plenty of humor and explains things in engaging, easily understandable terms.  My primary issue with the series is the video quality; while it's not a major problem most of the time, text from presentation slides is occasionally hard to read.  The series is popular on iTunes; I hope Stanford might consider re-recording the class sessions in higher quality in the future, although I wouldn't want anything else to change about them.

Of course, this is the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg of what's out there, and Java's ubiquity means the list of materials (free and otherwise) will only grow.  Perhaps you have some favorites of your own; are there any Java learning resources you'd recommend to others?