I decided to learn Java partly because I could see it paired with alot of fullstack roles and partly to help read Clean Code since the intro to Clean Code banged on about the importance of it's code samples (written in Java) and how they should be interogated and analysed.

I'm glad I put the time in to learning Java, it's given me a greater appreciation of it's influence in PHP and Typescript.

I feel alittle torn over Heads First Java. It's intended to be a written in a goofy way and it's aimed at beginners... and I don't really feel like a beginner programmer... but it's alot less dry than Java in a Nutshell which I started about the same time and abandoned... so it's definitely a great book series for aspiring developers. It's also a great suppliment to other learning methods as it explains alot of concepts in a conversational question and answer style to point out some of the finer aspects of the subject.

Anyway my takeaways from this book, a better understanding of the following topics:

• Encapsulation
• Interfaces
• Abstract classes
• Static classes

It's a good start, I'd quite like to spend some time with the Spring framework at some point and have a Java project in my lab but that's probably going to be a few years down the line I suspect. Also another takeaway... html and css to style an interface has alot going for it compared to Java Swing. Python Turtle Graphic GUIs were more fun than Java Swing too.