It’s now over 3 years ago that I head to take over a project, which covers a critical business case. And it was one of my most painful experience ever. It ends up that each day I worked on that project, I took pain-killer. The request was quite simple: “Please rollback a Java agent to a LotusScript Agent”. But I’ve never seen such a painful implementation of Java. It was quite horrible and against all that I’ve learned about Java.
But Java is the most important language for the future of IBM Domino. If you’re an Application Developer please learn Java. And please learn it, like you would learn something new. Trow away all your knowledge about programing, you can reintroduce it later. Here my advises how you should start:
- Download Eclipse
- Read Head First Java
- Do all examples from HeadFirst Java
- Read Design Patterns from HeadFirst
- Read Effective Java from Joshua Bloch
“I have not the time for that” could be your answer. The most of us do not have the time for our own education, but only 30 minute per day will pay of in a short time. And reading this books has also a positive effect on coding with Lotus Script 🙂
“How do I bring that in my Domino / Notes Projects?” – This is one of the most critical part. But in fact it’s very easy. DECIDE and DO….
…. and there is webinar this Thursday January 16 from TLCC and Teamstudio which covers XPages and Java Development. I hope you will participate: http://www.tlcc.com/admin/tlccsite.nsf/pages/xpages-webinar
And when you feel your self fit with Java, it’s time for the best-selling developer book form IBM Press called Mastering XPages.
guedebyte 
Jason
January 13, 2014 at 10:15 am
I’d suggest learning Java and take the certification. It will introduce a bit of rigour to your study and give you the confidence you’ve understood it. It’s been a while in my case (and I plan to recertify this year) but the Java developer certification was tricky and very worthwhile.
guedebyte
January 13, 2014 at 10:45 am
Which part was tricky for you?
Stephan H. Wissel
January 15, 2014 at 5:21 am
I would add 1a) Download BlueJ from BlueJ.org. While it isn’t a IDE that is designed for large projects or has any similarity to Domino designer, it has the ability to create a Java object instance and poke around interactively, calling methods, setting properties etc.
Then add: 4a) Read “Thinking in Java” (the 3rd edition is a free PDF download)
Charles Ross
January 16, 2014 at 4:38 am
Here is one cause of bad java in Notes – look at the IBM Designer Help examples. No object oriented code to be found there…
guedebyte
January 16, 2014 at 6:59 pm
The most code in the designer help are code snippets and demonstrate the usage of a method.