by Dickson Lua

Java: Learning A New Language

“Learning java is like learning another language. It’s not easy, the words have limitations, and sometimes, you have to get around the long way because there aren’t any shortcuts.” – Jezreel Montehermoso

Learning java is like learning a new language because java is a language.

It’s a programming language.

While it may share the same alphabet from a-z, that doesn’t mean that you use its words in the same way. If you wanted to say “Hello World” in English, all you’d have to do is to say the words. On the other hand, if you wanted to say “Hello World” in java, you’d probably have to make a class, type out “System.out.println(“Hello World”);”, compile the program, and run it.

The Basics

Source: oh-snap.org

                Like all things that are new, people usually learn by starting with the basics. In terms of spoken language, it would mean learning the language’s alphabet. This would usually include the vowels and the consonants of the language, saying “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “My Name is ____”, and counting from 1 to 10.

                In terms of java, it’s basically the same thing. For those who have no background, learning java will be a bit tough, much like how learning a new language will be tough. For those who have some sort of background it becomes easier, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll understand everything about java all at once.

                You’ll start with java’s concepts and fundamentals, its words and punctuation marks, its grammar and sentence structure. Here, you’ll learn that a semicolon is like the point at the end of a sentence, and you’ll come to know that runtime errors become a real pain in the neck if you can’t spot where the real error is.

Leveling Up

Source: ninjasagaalpha.net

                After the basics, it should be time to move on to things that are more challenging.

                I picked Japanese as my language for FLC (Foreign Language and Culture) class – not because it was easy, but because I wanted to. I could’ve picked Chinese over Japanese, but I didn’t pick it for fear of being forced into the advanced class. This was because I thought I’d surely have a hard time, what with it being “Level: Asian” and all.

                There, I did learn the basics of the Japanese language and did okay at the start when it was still in romaji – that is sort of using the alphabet or letters to write the words based on how they sounded like instead of writing it in legit Japanese characters such as hiragana, katakana, or kanji.

                Now when the time came for me to switch to the legit characters, I had a hard time adjusting because it was here where we started learning about more things. New words were being introduced to us by the dozen, and as I tried to grasp the words and convert them to Japanese characters, I found that I was also forming sentences and combining the words in ways that I didn’t understand.

                The same thing happened to me in java, and I’ll explain why.

My Experience

Source: keenertech.com

I’ll admit I had a hard time in my CS classes last year. While I may be Chinese, it’s sad how my powers don’t extend to computer science, math, and some other things that I wish it extended to. Now, what made it so hard for me?

Imagine someone talking to you in a language that you knew, except for the fact that it’s something you don’t know about. That’s how it was for me. Seeing as how I had no background in programming, it was challenging whenever I encountered something I didn’t understand, even after the explanations of both my professors and blockmates.

I actually had it easy at the start, seeing as we were just covering things like System.out.println and public static void main (String args[]). The problem arose, however, when we delved into harder concepts and encountered runtime errors like IndexOutOfBoundsException, StackOverflow, and whatnot with BlueJ telling me that there’s an error at line 37 even if I didn’t have anything wrong on that line. Despite having two amazing professors like Ma’am Didith and Ma’am Jess, I found it hard to grasp the concepts of java. Now, this isn’t an excuse for anyone to do badly, but it should be a motivation for you to do better.

And so I did do better. I experimented with things in java and finished programs the best I could. I used the Java API more often and referred to the PowerPoint slides and old programs as references to the new ones that were being taught to us. I used Google to search for things I didn’t understand, and if that didn’t work – I ask help from my blockmates. More often than not, I found myself getting the right answers to my questions, and this led me to understand java and its concepts more than what I expected to understand.

If I formed sentences and combined new words in my FLC class, it would probably be the same thing here in java with GUIs, Networking, and Layout Managers. As it is with anything that’s new, all I lacked was experience and practice. The more programs I accomplished, the more I understood java. The more you speak the language, the better you will be. And of course, I still have a lot to thank my blockmates for, because I probably wouldn’t even be writing this right now if it wasn’t for them.

Learning More Than Java

Source: zoomzum.com

                I may have covered the basics and some intermediate stuff, but the fact is – I’ve only covered such a small part of Java that I don’t think it can even be considered basic at all. Thing is, there’s so much more to learn about Java that I don’t even know where to start. This is probably why we have our CS classes to guide us, but don’t let that limit you from learning more than just java. There are many other programming languages out there, and god knows what they have in store for you.

                If you look at it from one perspective, it might seem that there’s too much to cover in so little time – but if you look at it from the other perspective, you’ve already covered a small part of it, and it’s only just the beginning.