Pure Java tutorials?

[RolsenRoyce]

I somewhere read that you need 1000 hours of Java programming in order to become ... OK
jMonkey will become my next weapon of choice in making a game, so I wondered if you guys knew the good tutorials.
Not -any- Java tutorial, but the -good- Java tutorials.

Also, I need a couple of really, really small programs/snippets that I can play with in Eclipse IDE.
Commented programs/snippets is really helpful, and teaches me more while I edit around and run.

I believe you get the idea.
Thank you for your time.

[Jackolantern]

It is true that Java is a much more complex language than Javascript and PHP, but if you understand the basics of those two (variables, functions, classes in PHP, etc.), then you can pick it up pretty fast. The majority of the time to learn Java is learning everything that is in its huge base class library. It is easily 50x bigger than the library of functions in PHP. But it is unlikely you will ever use every one of them, and probably 95% of your coding will only use about 5% of the library.

As far as tutorials, there is a nice intro to programming book available for free online here. There are several others out there, but the Sams 24 Hour book is quite outdated (covering 1.2 when the latest versions are 1.6 - 1.7), and the free online "Thinking in Java" book is both fairly outdated as well as advanced.

I enjoy Java a lot (although I prefer C#, a language that shares a lot more than a passing resemblance to Java) and have used it a fair amount. Good luck with it!

[Xaleph]

Hi there, if you really need a good book, there is a book called "Introduction to Java Programming", by Y. Daniel Liang. I recommend getting the latest edition, which is currently 7 or 8. It`s a full blown document covering every single aspect of Java out there. Pretty much anything you`ll need is in that book.

By the way, it`s not a complete tutorial or anything, however it does have a lot of assignments you can do. Also, the book is published by Pearson, so I reckon you`re gonna get special access to that as well. All in all, a good book. I actually have the 5th edition and it was a great book for reference.

edit: Can I also say that I usually don`t prefer books? In fact, I dislike books in a way that they are mostly outdated, don`t cover the real deal and usually target one specific group. Anyway, this is one of the books I never disliked