I had an hour to kill. Built my first Java project.
Never written Java before. Needed it for a client job.
Backstory: I was mid-session building English Pro when my Claude quota reset timer kicked in. Had exactly ~1 hour before it came back. Needed something to do.
Turns out an hour is enough to learn a new language.
74 minutes later:
✅ Spring Boot from scratch
✅ Multi-tier prize pools
✅ Dynamic weight algorithm
✅ Loss streak protection
✅ 80-level pet bonus system
✅ Item system
✅ Timer sessions
✅ Monte Carlo simulation (100k runs, 3.5% margin ✅)
✅ Swagger docs
Client went with someone else.
Kept the case study.
Not a bad trade.
Nice, getting something working in an hour is a great start.
What made you pick Java for your first project?
I've been wanting to learn Java for a while, and coincidentally I came across a freelance project that needed it. We agreed on the requirements, but couldn't settle on the payment terms — so I figured, the requirements are real anyway, why not use it to learn while actually building something? That's how my first Java project was born!