java introduction for pythonistas

[Ype Kingma]

Alex Polite wrote:

> 
> I've been working a few years with python. I'm  rather confident with
> basic OO design principles. Now some people that I consult for might
> be moving to Java. So I need to get up to speed with java. Are there
> any good documents out there for people with a python background
> coming to Java.

1) Give them Jython to revert to, and hope they'll only use Java for 
   performance critical things.
2) Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel will answer all your questions
   extensively. It's not an introduction, but it allows you to
   work by looking up the answers to your questions, and it's free.
   See www.mindview.net/Books .

> I'm not so interested in syntactical questions (eg
> "this is how we construct a for loop in python and this is how we do it
> java") I'm more interested in OO design patterns that Java supports (I
> know that it supports interfaces for one thing) that are not readily
> available in python, and other important differences. Is it possible
> to define new classes, functions, methods in Java? Are there even unbound

Yes, no, yes.

> functions in Java? From the little I remember of that half Java

No, but you can have methods bound to a class instead of to an object.

> chapter I read years ago you have to define classes for everything
> even for a print statement? These are the kind of questions I have.

You can use System.println() in java.

Have fun,
Ype

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