Getting Started at TSG

Java

If you don't have much Java experience, it's highly recommended to run through the materials below:

• Official Java Tutorials: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/
  • Focus on the "Basics" trail.
  • Don't worry about the Deployment section.
  • We don't create Java GUIs with JavaFX or Swing, so don't worry about those sections.
• If you're looking for a book, the Head First Java, 2nd Edition is really good.
• There are a ton of Java websites out there too if you're looking for more.

If you're good with the basics of Java, definitely take a look at Spring Framework, especially to understand dependency injection and RESTful web services.

JavaScript

Here at TSG we subscribe to the Douglas Crockford school of JavaScript. Basically he says that JavaScript has a lot of good parts and a lot of bad parts, and by sticking only to the good parts JavaScript can be really awesome. He wrote a book on the subject and this should be your number one resource. It's in the TSG Knowledge Base here. The first 6 chapters are the most crucial, and you shouldn't expect to take everything in with a single pass. Rather, you should read through them once, get a feel for what is in there, and then re-read them together or individually as you gain more real life experience with JavaScript. It's easier to absorb and understand a lot of the heavier topics once you have some context.

Here are some resources for the main JavaScript and CSS frameworks we use. Again, we don't expect you to come in as experts in all of these frameworks. But, it would be a good idea to have some familiarity before starting. The frameworks are listed below in our suggested order for understanding what they are and how they fit together.

• jQuery
  • https://jquery.com/
  • https://learn.jquery.com/
  • Note - we do not use much of jQueryUI - I think just the date picker
• Underscore.js
  • http://underscorejs.org/
  • https://www.sitepoint.com/getting-started-with-underscore-js/
• Handlebars.js
  • http://handlebarsjs.com/
• Twitter Bootstrap
  • http://getbootstrap.com/
  • http://www.tutorialspoint.com/bootstrap/
• Backbone.js
  • http://backbonejs.org/
  • http://www.tutorialspoint.com/backbonejs/
• jQuery.Deferred
  • http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/async/deferred/
• Jasmine
  • https://jasmine.github.io/2.0/introduction.html
  • https://modernweb.com/backbone-jasmine/

General Programming Skills

• https://www.codecademy.com - general programming learning
• https://codewars.com - build programming skills

Source Control Tools

Here at TSG we use two tools for version control:

• SVN
  • https://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/index.html
• Git
  • https://git-scm.com/docs/gittutorial