What kind of language is Java? I've heard various phrases tossed around, like "object oriented," etc. And, as a low-level programmer highly proficient in something like Axe, would it be easy or hard to pick up?

It's easy to pick up if you have experience in other OOP languages.

Object Oriented Programming is like:

str1 = "hey"
a = str1.length()
#a = 3
The upper code is python, but OOP is when you access object properties.

A property of a string can be its length, it's number of words, it's position (GUI), it's size (GUI).

Objects have an enormous number of properties and methods.

Take a look at this Java method:

JButton button = new JButton(); //This creates a button
button.setVisible(true); // setVisible() is a method, and I set it to true in order to show the button


Explaining OOP is hard, here's a Python example:


a = "hello"
print len(a)  # This is non-OOP
print a.__length__  #This is OOP
This last example is what made me understand OOP, I'll never forget it.

If you have experience in Python (and I know you do), you'll find Java more OOPy and easier to handle when it comes to GUI.

The inheritance is DAMN hard to get, but when you get it, you'll like it.

I used this textbook to learn Java, and using it has made me proficient enough to do good on the AP Computer Science Test:

http://math.hws.edu/javanotes6/

Java is a fairly simple language. As you learn more and more from/about it, I think you will really like OOP. It is a higher-level language that is extremely portable and can be used in a wide variety of applications. Plus it has a built-in garbage collector for memory management. Which means you will be pretty spoiled, because a lot of higher-level languages don't have that and if they do they aren't very good. Plus with a wide variety of tutorials and all the API's provided by Sun make it a great, language to pick up for a beginner.

java's a pretty easy language to pick up. here i'll describe the basics of OOP:
OOP is Object Oriented Programming. to start, i'd suggest to just learn about classes, objects, methods, instance variables and constructors along with how they interact. a class can be thought of a blueprint to make an object. a class contains methods (subroutines), instance variables (like A-Z+theta, except user-defined) and constructors (a special type of method used to create an object). here's a short example, labeling the parts of a class:
class Enemy{
     private int xPos = 0; // this creates an integer instance variable "xPos" and sets it to 0
     private int yPos = 0; // because of the variables are "private", they cannot be accessed outside the class

     public Enemy(int x, int y){ //constructor. enemies have an x and y position as parameters
          xPos = x;
          yPos = y;
     }

     public int getX(){ //this is a method. it returns a type int, and has no parameters passed.
          return xPos;
     }
     public void setX(int x){ //another method, with a void return type.
          xPos = x;
     }
}

to make and manipulate a new Enemy object, you would do:
Enemy myEnemy = new Enemy(5, 10); //creates a new Enemy object called myEnemy
int x = myEnemy.getX(); //calls the method "getX()"
System.out.println(x); //prints 5
myEnemy.setX(200); // calls method "setX()"
System.out.println(myEnemy.getX()); // calls getX(), and prints the value (200)


I don't know much about Java (apart from the fact that it's highly object-oriented), but from my experience transitioning from TI-Basic and Axe to C++ and Python, I can say that OOP isn't as hard as people make it out to be (either that, or I never learned it properly ) -- I found that using OOP in various projects turned out to be the best way to grok it.  Also, it's hard to get out of the habit of using global variables, but in OOP languages, globals are generally frowned on.

Really, I don't think you'll have a problem.