"Since its introduction to the programming community as
a whole in 1995, the Java platform has evolved far beyond the
"applets everywhere" vision that early Java pundits and evangelists
imagined a Java world to be like. Instead, the Java world rose up
to Swing, coalesced around servlets, rode that into J2EE, stumbled
on EJB, sidestepped over to Spring and Hibernate, added generics
and became more dynamic, then functionalized, and continues to grow
in all sorts of interesting directions even as I write this.
"Which leaves the Java programmer who didn't grow up along with
the language somewhat overwhelmed.
"As a speaker, blogger, consultant, and mentor, I am frequently
asked by junior and intermediate programmers working in the Java
space for resources to help them master this wide, complex,
seemingly endless world. A few years ago, I took a stab at
answering the question by posting a Recommended Reading List, but
recently the Java editor at developerWorks asked me to put together
a broader list of resources, not focused exclusively on books
— a good idea considering that the list had grown to a point
where a prospective consumer could easily spend the next decade
reading them and still not make a dent in the contents."
