recommendation for learning Java animation/applets programing
 

I am an experienced programmer, but have not used Java too much (about
one year) but
this was sometime ago.

I am interested in learning Java programming more for doing scientific
and physics
simulation and animation by writing applets.

I see many resources on the net, but I think if I can have one good
book to study from,
it might be better.

What do folks here recommend? Get a good book? which one do you
recommend?

Any other advice is welcome.

Thank you,
Steve

Re: recommendation for learning Java animation/applets programing
 

In article
<983f62a4-43cf-49b6-8628-afcf09f9db4c@a11g2000pro.googlegroups.com>,
steveh44 <steve_h44@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I am an experienced programmer, but have not used Java too much
> (about one year) but this was sometime ago.
>
> I am interested in learning Java programming more for doing
> scientific and physics simulation and animation by writing applets.
>
> I see many resources on the net, but I think if I can have one good
> book to study from, it might be better.
>
> What do folks here recommend? Get a good book? which one do you
> recommend?
>
> Any other advice is welcome.

Your question is intriguing, but it assumes the existence of a sort of
magic bullet [1]. I haven't found one. Instead study texts apropos to
programing in general or the problem domain in particular. Among top
choices for the former, I would include Bloch [2], Peierls, et al. [3]
and a book on patterns [4]. As an example of the latter, a kinematic
problem typically lends itself to a vector description; and the approach
shown here [6] is a convenient model.

There's no substitute for doing. Example abound. Choose a model that
interests you and try to refine it. Publish your results. Ask for and
accept criticism. Help others with similar problems. Repeat.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_bullet>
[2]<http://java.sun.com/docs/books/effective/>
[3]<http://www.javaconcurrencyinpractice.com/>
[4]<http://www.artima.com/designtechniques/booklist.html>
[5]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinematics>
[6]<https://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews/kineticmodel>

--
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>

Re: recommendation for learning Java animation/applets programing
 

On 4/17/2011 9:15 PM, steveh44 wrote:

> What do folks here recommend? Get a good book? which one do you
> recommend?
>
> Any other advice is welcome.


Learn to program in Java, first. I'd recommend the Java tutorials,
Learning Java by O'Reilly, and the Java Passion website.

http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781565927186
http://www.javapassion.com/portal/

The O'Reilly book in particular contains a lot more information than
just the basics. It has a lot of practical advice for Swing (Java's GUI
API) that I think you'd find useful for applets.

As for applets themselves or animation, no. Desktop is not Oracles
focus, and the development environment is kind of wonky. If you're not
an experienced programmer, you might have a bit of a rough time. Things
that work fine on your desktop aren't going to work at all when deployed
as an applet.

Take your time, and deploy several "test" applets to different
environments (OS, browser). Be prepared for "learning" (i.e., stuff not
working). A lot of folks who aren't programmers aren't prepared for
this kind of "build your test harness first" approach to applets, but
you're going to get bit if you expect it all just to work like magic.
There's no magic, and a lot of compromises might be needed to get a
robust process.