Justin’s Reviews > Learn Java the Easy Way: A Hands-On Introduction to Programming > Status Update

Though it's seldom discussed in technical books today, I find it helpful to use a concept called active recall to learn without exercises. Just pause a moment, or turn the page before attempting to write the example code. Writing variations thereof also helps. The thing to avoid is simply a copy and paste challenge which is simply a waste of time.

My guilty pleasure is that I'm enjoying what feels like a programming book for children. I just made a trivial GUI app in a few lines of code on a Java REPL, which I didn't know existed 10 minutes ago, so to speak.

So far the book assumes you know next to nothing of programming let alone the syntax of C-based languages like Java, so it's a bit of a slow start for an experienced programmer.

The exercises are smoothly increasing in complexity, which is one of the most important qualities in a book to learn another language.

The instructions to setup the programming environment worked flawlessly.