Newbie Looking For Help

OK, I couldn't determine where else on this board would be the best place to start, so this looked like an area that I wouldn't offend anyone.

I am trying to "fast track" my JAVA education. I learned BASIC back in the 80's and never did anything with it past High School. I have been playing with HTML since the early 90's and started PHP scripting during the last 10 months. PHP came easily enough with the help of a couple of books.

Now I have a serious challenge in developing an application in JAVA. So I have purchased a couple of books, the first few I didn't really like, I am now using "JAVA How To Program Sixth Edition". So far it has been a great learning tool and I am starting to get a better understanding of OOP and JAVA.

My problem is that my organization has put their faith in me to build an application from scratch that uses just about every aspect of JAVA that I can imagine. The application needs to be ready about a month ago. I think that an experienced JAVA programmer could knock this out in a couple of days, maybe a week or so, but I am dragging.

I understand that one of the biggest advantages to JAVA is being able to use classes other people have already developed, but I am not understanding how and where you find these classes. I know about the classes that come packaged with JAVA, and have used classes like the JDBC driver. But, where can I find other classes that might help me in my application development? I need an I/O class for the serial port. I need a class for displaying something similar to a stopwatch. I am having a hell of a time with screen layout and design. The list goes on and on....

Might there be someone out there willing to help guide/tutor me in getting this application done? I just feel like I may be spinning out of control.

Moving to Java In General...Good Luck!

Thank you, I need it...

Hi Brett,

look at the jclass components from Quest software. One of the classes is a stopwatch ..

hope that helps

There are lots of places on the Internet where you can find hundreds of useful libraries and complete programs with source code.

On Sun's Java website there are already a lot of extension packages. For example, for serial port programming you can get the Java Communications API there.

One other well-known website is The Apache Jakarta Project. It has lots of high-quality, widely used libraries. Especially the Jakarta Commons libraries are very useful.

Another website where you can find lots of useful pieces of code is SourceForge. That's a website that a lot of developers use to work together on open source programs and libraries (not only in Java).

I wrote up a software requirements document that might shed some more light on this project and help identify some areas that I haven't even thought of yet.

DSS Software Requirements

Brett,

Good luck! You can get the API for communicating with ports here http://java.sun.com/products/javacomm/index.jsp

.. sounds like you're in at the deep end, but I think you came to the right place to ask questions

I just took a brief look at your document. Look slike you might need a library for writing reports in PDF too, so maybe take a look here http://www.lowagie.com/iText/

So where is the logical starting point for what I am doing? Do you start with a screen design, write modules to handle various differnt functions, database archetecture?

Brett,

Your last question moves from the "how do I implement this in Java"-type question to a "where do I start"-process-type question. Rather than moving this thread (again) to the Process forum, I suggest that you post a thread over there (Process: UP, RUP, XP, etc.) pointing to this thread or just post the "where's the starting point question" with a link to your document over there. At least that's what I would do if I were in your position.