Getting Started with Java

In this lesson we are going to look at some of the common terms you will hear when getting started with Java. When I got started I would hear all of these acronyms and it would really trip me up sometimes. I hope this clears some things up for you so you can move forward with confidence.

Now that we understand some of the Java terms it is time to see if you have the JDK installed. We are going to introduce you to a nice command that will help you check to see if Java is installed.

In this lesson we are going to talk about one of my favorite tools, SDKMan. SDKMAN! is a tool for managing parallel versions of multiple Software Development Kits on most Unix based systems. It provides a convenient Command Line Interface (CLI) and API for installing, switching, removing and listing Candidates.

Now that we have SDKMan installed we can use this wonderful tool to install Java. I will also point you in the right direction if you just want to download Java manually and install it.

Exercise: How to check what version of Java you have installed.

In this lesson I will review the exercise and walkthrough my solution.

Now that we have our development environment up and running it's time to write out first program. I want to stress that the goal of this course is not to teach you everything about the Java language. I do want you to get some hands on experience though and introduce you to the Java Language.

Before we write our first program we need to understand the typical life of a program. When we can understand what the execution of our program looks like it will make a little more sense to us. 

In this lesson we are going to write our very first program together.

In this exercise you are going to write your own program!

In this lesson we are going to review the exercise from the previous lesson.

In this lesson we are going to learn all about IDE's & Text Editors.

This article will give you a list of text editors and IDE's that you can use to write Java code.

In this lesson we are going to look at the different versions of IntelliJ. We will also go ahead and walk through installing IntelliJ together.

In this lesson we will use our shiny new toy to recreate that same Hello World application we created earlier in this course.

In this exercise you are going to write you first exercise in IntelliJ.

In this lesson we are going to review the exercise and I will show you my solution.

In this lesson we will take a tour of IntelliJ. I will show you where things are and how to get around your IDE.

In this lesson we are going to look at how to customize IntelliJ using themes. I also want to take a look at my favorite them and how to install it.

In this lesson we are going to take a look at how to find plugins and install them. I will also walk you through some of my favorite plugins.

In this lesson we are going to talk about organizing your imports and formatting your code.

In this lesson we are going to look at how templates can help us out in IntelliJ.

In this lesson we are going to talk about what you can expect from this section. I know if you're pretty new to the Java language that some of these concepts might be a little over your heard but don't worry about that. Just seeing these features in action will help you when you start to come across them in your everyday development. 

In this lesson we are going to look at some of the code generation features that IntelliJ offers us. 

In this lesson we are going to look at how to debug your Java applications in IntelliJ. Using the debugger is an important tool in your toolbelt as it will help you identify problems much quicker. 

In this lesson we are going to look at a cool little feature. IntelliJ can create a command line launcher for you and this will allow you to open a directory or project right from the command line. 

In this lesson we are going to look at another important feature of any IDE, refactoring. When you need to change something you shouldn't be changing it manually because there might be other parts of the application referencing that code. IntelliJ has great support for refactoring your code and we will look at it now.

In this lesson we are going to import a project from Github into IntelliJ.

In this lesson we are going to look at the decompiler that ships with IntelliJ and discuss what it is and why we might use it. 

In this lesson I am going to give you some keyboard shortcuts that are going to make you a productive developer.

In this section we are going to dive into a little bit of an advanced feature, build tools. Again the goal here is not to learn everything about them but to begin to understand the idea of them and why they exist. In this section we are going to look at 2 of the most popular build tools, Maven & Gradle. 

In this lesson we are going to look at the build tool Maven. We are going to create a new Java project in IntelliJ using Maven and show you the important features. 

In this lesson we will look at what dependency management is in Maven and how we can use it. We will also look at a quick example of proving a dependency and using it in our project. 

In this lesson we are going to look at the build tool Gradle. We are going to create a new Java project in IntelliJ using Gradle and show you the important features. 

In this section we are going to discuss some other languages that run on the JVM and why they exist.

In this lesson we are going to talk about some of the languages that run on the JVM. 

In this lesson we are going to look at the Groovy programming language. Groovy is far and away one of my favorite languages on the JVM. It just has a way of making complex things real easy. 

In this lesson we are going to look at the Kotlin programming language. Kotlin is fairly new but already quickly becoming one of the go to languages for developing Android applications. 

In this lesson we are going to look at the Scala programming language. I am going to quickly talk through what the language is all about and then we will look through some demos on the both the command line and in IntelliJ. 

In this lesson we are going to take a tour of the documentation and where to go to find the answers you're looking for.

In this lesson we are going to discuss some other resources for finding answers to your problems.

You have successfully completed this course! I hope you had as much fun going through it as I did creating it. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. If you feel like this course helped you out please help me out and leave me a review. Until next time... Happy Learning!