Many moons ago I studied computer science. I made it through all three "gateway" classes - the ones intended fail half the students and scare people off from majoring in the subject. I'm likely the only person who did this and then decided to major in something else.
But I digress - the first two of these classes used Java. I did well in the classes and even mostly enjoyed them, but I have since forgotten most of what I learned (both about Java and computer science). Java has also changed a bit in the interim, although not as much as I expected.
Since apparently Java is the most popular programming language, and since I remember it being a pretty safe playground, I decided to go ahead and dive back in. I haven't done anything major yet - a few simple classes and applets - but I do find that what I have learned in other languages (particularly R) has helped me better understand both the strengths and weaknesses of Java.
I won't go into too many details as I'm sure the Internet is full of people with more knowledge than me opining about the qualities of programming languages. I will say that, apart from the verbosity, I am enjoying Java. It does enforce a great deal of structure but I am sympathetic to its mindset, and I absolutely love working in Eclipse.
I've been toying with ideas for more significant projects - a Java rendition of Devil Bunny Needs a Ham, perhaps. Of course applets are evil (we are far too impatient to wait 5 seconds for the JVM to load) so if I actually wanted to make a popular game I should use something else. Maybe I'll write it in Java and use the Google Web Toolkit to make it all Ajaxy...
So anyway, stay tuned for potential Java-related updates, and if you have fun project ideas (or if you, yaknow, exist) feel free to comment.
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