First of all, know that Java and JavaScript are not the same language.

That much I do know.

Understand the Java SE libraries and understand the collections framework. Be familiar with

data structures beyond array lists.

And know what an array list is.

I can give you more pointers -

Isn't that how you reference a value in an array?

Yeah. You also need to understand the concepts of object oriented programming – and then

how to implement them in Java.

That's what makes you a Java developer.

Understand how the Java Virtual Machine works. The JVM is so powerful that other languages

like Scala utilize the JVM to run their code.

Should I know other programming languages to work in Java? I've heard people say you

should learn Haskell to learn functional programming, for example.

At least if you learn niche languages like French and Finish, you sound sexy or smart.

If you are working on web applications, know JavaScript and HTML so that the web application

works when run on a web page.

HTML is so simple you can learn it on a long weekend.

HTML5 and cascading style sheets are a little more complicated, so give it a week of study

to be able to replace Adobe plug-ins with video tags.

Yeah, half as many browser crashes. Should I learn some of the Java-like programming

languages?

You can skip CoffeeScript – and Mocha is too new to even debate using.

This is like Cocoa and Cocoa Touch; I guess a lot of programming terms are beverage related.

There's a pizza programming language, so it is not just beverages.

I did not need to know that. Do I need to know what Java means?

You don't have to know what Java means, since it is not an acronym, though there are

jokes about it as meaning "Just Another Vague Acronym".

What about Mocha?

Mocha is supposed to look like Java, but has a lot of tags and constructs like HTML.

You might as well learn Java and HTML.

And then you'll be a good Java developer. And know at least one framework, like Spring.

Or Eclipse.

Eclipse is a development environment. If you're working on a server, learn JClearity to monitor

the performance of your web based apps.

I'm having horrific flashbacks to dreams of becoming a Unix admin.

Learn Bintray to manage code imports and libraries from Java repositories. It is like a librarian

for code libraries.

That'll save me a lot of time and from a lot of horror stories.

Takipi is a tool to tell you why code breaks, like explaining where exceptions happened

and other information beyond a standard warning.

I'd love to sit with the programmers who designed a Java coding fix for dummies software

app like that.

If you want to be a Java developer, sitting down with the Java for dummies and idiots

books is a great place to start.