I have been reading Java Programming from Problem analysis to program design, by Malik and Nair which is really good, but I have a few small problems. Firstlty, what is the scope of java? It seems to me that there is very little you can do with it, which is a shame as this is the basis for my MSc next year. I am very interested in programming games, or other programs with graphics in them, but bar the GUI components and Applets, how would I be able to create a program with non 'java like' graphics? What i mean by this is not the standard stuff that comes with java but something I could design myself?

Also I struggle a bit on the concepts of OOP and wondered if anyone has any good links which they could post to help me out?

Thanks in advance

Andy

Andy,

Java is actually quite a robust programming language in both graphics and application development. While I'm not sure what nature of graphical programming you have in mind, do some research on Swing2 components and Java3D.

As for application development and the object-oriented nature of Java, this is probably something best handled by a text. I would recommend the "Core Java" series by Sun Microsystems Press - an excellent set of volumes for programmers jumping in to Java fresh or even from another language. It has a thoughtful and lucid introduction to OOP.

Java can be a very rewarding language in which to work.

Java can do fully 3d stuff, skinning, and import graphics. It also handles client/server communications well. Theres been a decline of these things on the web because flash files are generally smaller, but its moved to other mediums (mobile phones, for example) successfuly.