The newcomer to java will regularly ask, "How do I . . .?". A typical student assignment will require reading some data from a file, displaying a user interface that gets other data from a user, and then computing the answer to some question that may not be trivial.
While struggling with a minimal knowledge of programming, object concepts, language syntax and all the other pieces that are required to write a working program, the student is lost in an overwhelmingly large API, with no idea about, "How do I read data from a file?" and many similar questions.
Fortunately the Internet has provided an answer: Google. Just search for "java tutorial x" where "x" is a word or two about your topic. I just tried "java tutorial file data" and got the top 10 (of 5,2 million!) results in 0.27 seconds.
The first entry was for the official Sun tutorial. Sun's tutorials are authoritative, although not always the easiest. I'd always start with Sun, but go elsewhere if it's above your level.
Of the others, look for one you like. Most tutorials are topic-specific and may be digested just about as quickly as this short article.
And one more thing: I wrote my first java 10 years ago and I still use tutorials for subjects that are new to me.
Did I say "Google" when I meant to say "search"? No, I meant Google. As I write this (2005) no other search engine comes close for this kind of search.
© 2005 by Martin Rinehart