Brand new to programming

Hello. I am brand new to programming. I have been designing web sites for about 2 years now, and I have heard that Java is the wave of the future. I went out and bought the Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 days, and am finding it very informative. Here is my question. I tought myself HTML by using wysiwyg editors, then edditing the code. I learn very fast that way. I want to learn to write web applets, and also stand alone applications with Java. Is the text book method the way I should go, or is there some way I can get ahold of existing program source codes and modify them to learn? Which is better? I have no knowledge of any programming what so ever. Thank you for your replys.

Aaron Wyrick

Hi,

there are some interesting online trainings from Sun on http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/infodocs/, for beginners on http://developer.java.sun.com/develo...va1/index.html and http://developer.java.sun.com/develo...va1/index.html. There you can find source code to modify, too.

In the past I bought very fat books, too. Now I think the best way is to buy a small book for every problem. I prefer O'Reilly and Addison Wesley.

Bye
Axel.

Aaron,
I think you are following the right path by reading the text books on how to program.
For those of us who have not studied computer science in school, we can learn the
majority of what is needed by reading these books. If your only using java to write applets
and not full fledged Java applications, learning from the book should be more than sufficient
for your needs. Take my advice, I learned all I know about programming without taking one
computer course. Most of my learning was done from first reading these "Learn To" books and
then experimenting with my own programs.