Java skills are not only some of the most sought after but also some of the easiest to learn, and now you can acquire them quickly without taking time off from your current job or going into debt.

New developers should focus early on about JDBC in Java. Despite the name misnomer, the API plays an integral role in relational data development and the JDK.

JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) is the Java API that manages connecting to a database, issuing queries and commands, and handling result sets obtained from the database.

Here's a quick JDBC with HSQLDB tutorial to get you up and running with Java database connectivity and the popular HyperSQL database.

Topics covered in this class include: effective use of the Java language, annotations, database connectivity (JDBC) and relational mapping, XML processing (JAXB), generics, multithreading, network ...