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Well-Grounded Java Developer: What forms your Java Foundation?

 
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Thanks to our guest authors for hanging out with us this week.

I browsed through the book's table of contents and see that there are many different topics covered. I was asked by a young developer I'm mentoring recently, "You throw so many references to books and articles at us, how do we get through all of that?" I can understand his anxiety and I'd like to pose a similar question to you: What parts of the book should people focus on to get a solid grounding in Java, that will give them the foundation for exploring other sections of the book? Surely it can't be all of the book.

For example, there's a section on Functional Programming which includes Kotlin FP and Clojure FP. Should readers read the separate sections on Kotlin and Clojure before going to the Kotlin FP and Clojure FP sections, respectively?

Another example, is a good grounding in the chapter about Java modules needed to be able to absorb material in later chapters? What does the "Beyond Modules" section point to? Are there other chapters in the book related to the things you mention as going beyond modules?
 
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Great question!

Particularly for a young developer, I find that the material in Part 1 and 2 are really the building blocks for understanding the Java platform. Concurrency they've probably encountered (and there are other great resources) but the fundamentals there are key. Ben's chapter on class files and bytecode is also amazing grounding for understanding a lot about the JVM that you'd be hard pressed to find covered as thoroughly online.

The book does build from part to part. So as you point out, reading the Kotlin and Clojure intros will benefit the later parts where we show examples for FP and concurrency in light of those other languages.

What does the "Beyond Modules" section point to?



This section talks about Jlink and some of the very cool packaging options that modules are starting to make possible on the JVM. We discuss that further too in the Build Tools chapter.
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