Should you learn a language before Java?

Question

I know less than zero about programming. Can you just go straight to Java? Or should you learn another language first? Does it matter?

Any recommendations for learning programming(Java) online?

Answer 1

Java is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language. Since it conceptually involves an understanding of "classes" and "objects" (and that's just the beginning), such ideas can make the language quite difficult for a novice programmer, on top of getting used to the syntax. So what to do in order to become more comfortable with the syntax? Learn JavaScript first. It has a similar-looking syntax to Java, but does not require you to learn object-oriented programming straightaway (though you really should eventually learn OOP). You could try going straight to Java, but you will want to get a grasp of the object-oriented paradigm. An excellent site for learning how to do simple tasks with Java is http://www.javaalmanac.com/
Trying to learn C or C++ as a first programming language is perhaps one of the most difficult ways to get into programming; a lot of people might recommend those languages, but they are very unforgiving and difficult to debug compared to Java. JavaScript is very gratifying in that you can see immediate results in your web browser, and it does not require you to obtain a compiler software or integrated development environment (IDE). The best books on programming tend to quickly get you into writing the code, rather than spending a hundred pages trying to describe the finer details of how something like an array works. You don't need to know all the details on how the language works in order to use it effectively--just like you don't need to know everything about how a car works in order to drive it well. You can learn the finer details later.

Answer 2

HTML is one of the simplest things to learn, and it's not really a code, it's simply a markup. Learning HTML will not really help you learn any other languages any easier. Before you want to jump in JAVA i would suggest learning JAVASCRIPT. Javascript works with html, and is based off of the Java's syntax. So if you learn javascript, you might have a little more success jumping into Java, because at least you'll understand how functions work, how the syntax is marked up. Etc. Don't get this confused though. Javascript and Java are still two completely different languages that do two totally different things.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, most of the languages that have been developed the past 10 years or so tend to include "the kitchen sink". I'd just go straight to Java because when you learn it you're going to get the "yeah i know language xxx did it this way but in Java we do it that way" speech from your book/instructor/website and you will just get more confused. You DO need to find a good source that will give you the language in small pieces. I'm not sure what's on the Internet but I strongly recommend the book "Head First Java". It's now in it's second edition, it has a lot of examples, and won't go too fast for you.

Answer 4

Ya, you have to learn at least any one of the programming before going to java. Why because Java is the Extended language to c, C++, with out knowing the concepts of any programming language it is very difficult to go to java. As you already said you have 0% knowledge of programing it is very difficult, and one more thing is many of institutions even not revicing the topics of previous languages. The thing I can suggest you is you just learn the basics of c & C++ and enter in to Java. But you have to do very hard work in java. All The Best

Answer 5

huh...... strictly speaking you don need to have any pre-requisites to learn JAVA. You can start learning it right away

but in case you have some knowledge on some programming language like c or c++, u can very much easily learn java....

Answer 6

English is recommended....but I see you've got a good handle on that...go for the Java, enjoy...LOL