Discussion Learning The Basics...

Well I myself never studied programmation, it's only an hobby and I code for fun. As you said Elfo, the diploma doesn't specially mean you're good to develop, but surely you learnt many things from it (I hope for you :D).

If people wants to make it as an hobby, there isn't secret :

• you must love what you're doing
• you must be curious
• you must be able to search by yourself the informations (I didn't invent "Google is your friend", but if it exists there's a reason).

The easiest means are, as a perfect newcomer on languages, and I will repeat myself :

• analyse existing Java code & syntax, until "you get it". You can't differentiate good and bad codes from that point, but I would say beginning with bad code help you. If someone can provide examples of good and bad codes, then it's even better.
• analyze L2J organization. Imagine it as a fucking big tree, with 1240+ files, all linked. You have to understand HOW it's built to know WHERE to search. You don't move in a new city without using a Map or Google Map or your GPS, aren't you ?
• take some customs, and try to implement them (until you succeed or fail, the fail doesn't specially mean you failed if you really tried and learnt something).
• edit those customs, giving you some goals : it can be extending functionalities or improve performances or improve readability.
• repeat 1/2/3/4 until you proclaim yourself "Javatar on Earth" and explain things to Tryskell, xdem, Elfo and few others.

I use a lot of metaphores, but really if you're a newcomer which wants to learn and got some "logics" and you hate "books" like me, that's how I did. Some could love books and learn way faster than I did, but I do it for fun and I'm happy when I discover things by myself (you can easily imagine the day when I discovered a class could extend another...).