Oh just... compile already... please?

[Shian]

Long story short I've been working on this stupid java homework ALL DAY!

It's the first assignment, first quarter, first program.

We've been taught some things, but not others. Like I dunno what we need to solve the decimal problem! So I've been emailing the TA, he comes back with checking float (we haven't learned that yet and I don't see it on API, or at least a valuable example enough so that I know what I'm doing)

Great -_- Thanks, TA.

Java is not one of these things where you can just push someone off the edge of a pool and just hope they 'figure it out' how to swim.

[Steelclaw]

If you're dealing with dollars and cents, store and work with the entire value * 100 as an integer. (2.67 -> 267) This gets rid of annoying rounding errors that otherwise crop up when you store dollars and cents in a float.

I don't know why you're learning Java as an introduction to programming. Sure, theres a lot of checking to make sure your code does what it says, but there's a lot of overhead too (Have you done the "hello world" program yet?). For what it's worth, my first programming class in college used Java as well. I think the only thing that saved my butt was having prior experience. I feel your pain. -_-

You may find this book useful for making up for your TA's shortcomings:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596007737/

[Shian]

We didn't do our "Hello World" program. It was shown to us in class, and this was thrust upon us in it's place.

OMG words! And explanations! Thank you for this book!

[Steelclaw]

No problem. You can also find some sample code and a nice API cross reference at java.sun.com (See the right-hand column under "Resources").

[Dhalin]

This reminds me of when I taught myself some intermediate PERL script.

I've never touched PERL previously, but I did have some beginner C++ under my belt, which PERL is similar to in syntax.

From scratch, I managed to create a script that is meant to be run on someone's machine (not on a webpage) from a command line (you had to install PERL on your machine to use it). What it did, was decode ICQ (remember that program?) chat files into .txt files that anyone can read.

I managed to pull it off, too.

But it took quite a few weeks, and a LOT of googling for examples of how to use some functions that I needed, and I luckily came across a .cht file specification, so I knew how the .cht files were formatted.

[Cromos_Swordbreaker]

when i was in high school, I had alot of fun learning BASIC by myself then moved on to QBASIC and again self taught ( who needs a teacher for basic and qbasic anyway? :P).

C++ has proven quite too steep for me to learn so I stuck with the basics.