Into the Black Forest Again

So, in anticipation for my return to college this fall, I'm going to knock the rust from my programming mind. I haven't used it in a while, so I have to turn everything back on.

To give you a little background of my programming experience, I started out with a good 'old robot programmer course that UWP uses to introduce novice programmers to the world of writing code. From there I continued up the chain of C+, C++ and then Java. My college was interrupted after taking my first Java course. I have since messed with Action Script / Flash on my own.

Now I come back to it all. First two steps I take are to get a new flash compiler (Adobe Flash CS4 Professional - [$$Pricey!$$]), and to install the FREE Net Beans IDE 6.8 for programming in Java. I run Vista on my laptop, and the Java Development Kit I downloaded for Net Beans to run on didn't give me any non-Vista-compatible gruff.

I figured since Action Script is a bit faster to learn than Java, I would start my path back into programming with a few flash animations. Boy was I wrong. A lot has changes since I last accessed Flash (through Macromedia Flash MX), and I found that the latest Action Script (3.0) isn't even compatible with former versions. After some looking into, I found the methods of 3.0 to be a bit more friendly to a Java oriented programmer, until I tried to run my script. Let's just say that I'm happy I can access all the professional documentation I need for Action Script and Adobe Flash CS4 Professional through my membership to Books 24/7. That website has saved me a lot of frustration and coin with its repository of web-texts.

Now I am leaning more towards starting off again with Java. With some research I've done, mobile devices are actually a better audience for Java than Flash, which surprised me. Most computers do both, because the languages run virtually and very compatibly with little hardware specification; and the game platforms out there that use the internet are factory Flash compatible, but you have to take steps to get them to take Java.

The I phone, of course, does neither. There goes my idea for another quick buck. Steve Jobs doesn't like developing end user software...it might produce jobs that give him less profit. Bastard.

What this all means in the end, is that I will be pushing more back into Java than Flash, because it has the larger audience, and all my development tools are FREE.