Sun has a very comprehensive online documentation of the Java language. This is a good book if you are a seasoned developer and just wanting to pick up Java "Java In A Nutshell" by David Flanagan, O'Reilly.
Another really good book is "Just Java 2" by Peter van der Linden, Sun Microsystems Press. I learnt Java from these (C++ background) and I recommend both. There aren't really variations of Java itself, so a basic grounding in the language is something that you can use whatever you end up doing. However there are lots of design and coding patterns around Java which give high productivity, especially when using Java to write server software, which is probably what you mean by Java as it relates to Flex. Java doesn't specifically relate to flex or vice versa, but there is middleware which serialises between Java and ActionScript, such as FDS. On the server you will need to look at EJB and J2EE and I would recommend Spring, although it takes a bit of getting your head around, and Hibernate if you are persisting your data relationally. These are all frameworks for coding which, with supporting packages from 3rd parties, give a high degree of productivity in writing scalable Java servers. It is truly amazing how much fee code there is available. You'll probably wind up with Eclipse as an IDE too, so it is worth familiarising yourself with that. Don't expect the Microsoft IDE, but it is pretty good all the same. I'm sure lots of people will comment, but i hope that gives you some first pointers of what to google. Good luck --- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, "aaronvm707" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hello, > > I have begun working with Flex a couple of months ago and have been > learning fairly quickly. I come from a Microsoft ASP.net background, > but would prefer to work with Flex & Java. Can anyone suggest > resources and/or books to start learning Java as it relates to Flex. > There seams to be many variations of Java for different development > needs & I am not sure where to begin. Thanks > > Aaron >
