Hi thanks for the reply, I'm in ns now going to study business next year. Hmm do you have any particular books to recommend because the ones ive read so far didn't really help much either
Which book have you read so far ? How do you find them not helping much ?
If you have no programming background, what you probably need more is learning how to program, not so much of which language in specific.
I don't really have any specific Java Programming books to recommend since when I picked it up, it's still Java 1.1/1.2
Recent Java has a lot of new frameworks classes, generics, annotations and so forth features incorporated, I can't be sure which book explain better. I normally don't recommend people to books unless it has really something special to discuss about. Different people have different approach to absorb information. At different level, one tend to focus differently too. Some topics are better to have books written with more practicals in depth, or some others in theory more, so you will like to flip thru the TOC, look at the discussed topics and also briefly read thru the chapters and see if the author wrote in the way that you can easily understand. Some authors write good books, but are deep and assume you have a lot of knowledge in those topics.
Update
Knowing that you are a business student and not a comp. sci student, I would recommend that you go pick up Windows technologies. Knowing how to program in .NET, using languages like C#, VB.NET, VBA, ASP.NET would bring you more value in the software you are using.
Most productivity suite will be Microsoft Office. It is extensively integrated with .NET and VBA, you will find your skill set having more areas of usage.
Learning C# and ASP.NET will also give you as much leverage as Web Java developers when coming to web development.
As much as I don't enjoy Windows technologies myself and prefer the *NIX & Java camps more, I will say Windows technologies will bring you more value since you are not likely to major in software development.
