Suggestions for soon to be intern

800219

I understand this is a very vague question and I will try to keep it short.

The material I have learned from college seems outdated and I plan to soon intern for a reputable company such as Intel, Oracle or HP.

Could anyone give me some NEED-TO-KNOW subjects which I should brush up on in-order to get up to date with the latest Java programming techniques and jargon.


Thanks in advance!

YoungWinston

user11313819 wrote:
The material I have learned from college seems outdated and I plan to soon intern for a reputable company such as Intel, Oracle or HP.
Could anyone give me some NEED-TO-KNOW subjects which I should brush up on in-order to get up to date with the latest Java programming techniques and jargon.

My suggestion would be not to worry too much about the latest buzzwords, and concentrate on being a good programmer; that'll help you a lot more in the long run. Wherever you end up doing your internship is likely to have their own agenda, so questions on specifics are likely to be best directed at them when you know where you're going.

In the meantime, boning up on EJB architecture might not be a bad idea; and get some good general books:
'Effective Java' by Joshua Bloch is, by quite a margin, the best practitioner's book I've ever read about any language and, although it's getting long in the tooth, 'Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software' (commonly known as "GoF") is something of a classic.
Maybe you have both already; if so, I'm sure there will be other suggestions.

Another thing you might try is to pick a project for home study. Nothing works like doing, and if you have something to show your prospective employers, it may well impress them. Just don't make it too ambitious - a working Morris Minor is better than a Roller in the machine shop :-).

Winston

856308

Thank you for the insightful information, I will be sure to look into the books you mentioned.

gimbal2

user11313819 wrote:
Could anyone give me some NEED-TO-KNOW subjects which I should brush up on in-order to get up to date with the latest Java programming techniques and jargon.

In order of execution:

- the Java 6 language itself
- the important classes in the JDK, how classloaders work, threading and concurrent access
- basic web theory (HTTP, HTML)
- web programming (MVC pattern, servlets, web framework. I'm becoming more of a Wicket enthusiast myself, but that is personal taste)
- "web 2.0 stuff". Ajax, Ajax toolkits such as JQuery, dynamic (X)HTML, REST...
- get a good book on JPA technology (I suggest Pro JPA 2)
- get a good book on EJB technology (I suggest Enterprise Javabeans 3.1)
- Learn how to properly work with an IDE such as Netbeans or Eclipse.
- get going with Glassfish V3.X, for lack of another decent JEE6 implementation.

These suggestions are based on the names you dropped, where if you are a developer you have a good chance of getting into contact with web and EJB technologies. There is just one problem here: to properly learn all that, you aren't going to finish any time soon. This is lots of work.

800219

Thank you gimbal.

I understand it is going to take a while, after all programming in general is a constantly changing profession is it not? My theory is that with a major such as CS I will never truly be "done" with learning.

This gives me a good idea as to what to do for my summer break rather than work more hours at my brain-dead job.

Thanks again.