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Summary: Bloch Rules!
Review: I could never have written Mastering The Fundamentals of The Java Programming Language were it not for this book. Bloch is a truly great programmer.
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Summary: Practical guides for when you have problems
Review: Practical guide for using Java by an architect of Java. Lot's of traps to look out for. Some of the advice is from burnt fingers in building Java itself.Read it, refer to it, commit it to memory.
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Summary: Excellent book
Review: This book is essentially a collection of non-trivial(well, a few of them are trivial) tips that can benefit any serious Java developer. Is you already know Java, and would like to find out what are the best practices for programming in Java then this book is for you.
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Summary: One of the best books on Java
Review: If you prgram Java or C# for living, read this book and refer to it often. Do you catch or throw exceptions?
Read and reread the exceptions chapter. It will make you a better developer. Since C# is so close to Java most of the items raised in Effective Java also apply to C#.
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Summary: Amazing book!!!
Review: Here it's a book that should always be near from you. The tips and warrings about finally blocks and serialization are precious! In my opinion it's a great book to Developer exam from Sun too!
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Summary: Must read for Java Developers
Review: there is a huge difference between just writing code that compiles and run and writing code that is robust, extensible, maintainable and readable. the latter took a lot more effort and a *whole* lot of experience. but dont worry, the author has acquired the experience for you, now all we have to do is to read it!
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Summary: Almost good... but not quite
Review: This book continues the style established by Scott Meyers in his Effective C++. When I read Effective C++, I stopped every few pages to go away and modify my existing code in light of his suggestions, and was stimulated to improve my coding style in the long term. I hoped for the same from Effective Java. While it's a good book, it doesn't have the same impact. The articles are too long and detailed, and have more than I wanted to know about the reasoning behind the design of Java and its libraries (Bloch was an insider to the process). The articles tend to be prescriptive rather than persuasive. While Meyers won me over by allowing me to sleep more soundly in the knowledge that my code was safe and stable, Bloch leaves me feeling that I'm a bad person if I don't do it his way.
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Summary: Nuggets of wisdom
Review: This book is a collection of nuggets of wisdom. They can actually be read in any order but they do make a lot of sense end-to-end. The author really knows his stuff; he demonstrates his mastery of the Java language and depth of understanding of programming in general on every page. I would recommend that any Java programmer buy this book and *read it* thoroughly. It will change the way you program. Remember God is in the details: the things that separate good code from bad code are very subtle, but you need to know them or you'll be just another contributor to the vast sea of garbage code out there.
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Summary: Would You Like Milk with That?
Review: For years it was said that the road to modern riches lay in a mastery of Java. This once inspired me to contact the Starbucks Corporation about acquiring a franchise with the remaining wisps in our trust fund (true story: an ill-starred thrice-great grandfather of mine set sail for Santiago in 1849, having misheard the talk about gold in San Francisco. This sort of thing runs in families). The chatter was of course about computers, not coffee, and years later I finally acted on this revised intelligence and sat down before my PC with this outstanding manual, determined to learn the new language of commerce. Bloch presents an admirably detailed and robustly structured survey of the elements of Java programming (named, I believe, for the Indonesian island upon which it was created). He takes the young cadet by the chin and methodically drills him through the paces. By lunchtime of the first day I felt like a union shop steward, having learned to "enforce noninstantiability with a private constructor" (chapter 2, page 12). By evening I was high-end a country club bouncer, having learned to "minimize the accessibility of classes and members" (Chapter 4, page 59). But by the time I got to the section on "returning zero-length arrays, not nulls" I was out of metaphors and completely over my head in this black new art. For weeks I felt inept and hopelessly outmoded, until one day I had the good fortune of hailing a taxicab whose driver was the author of one of this book's rivals. It was then that I realized that the bubble had truly burst, and that I hadn't missed out on anything after all. I tipped him handsomely.
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Summary: The Missing Link
Review: Joshua does a great job in giving advice on what features to use and avoid and when to do so. Although some recommendations seem to be based upon "style" at first blush, the author backs up his assertions with sound reasoning. If there are tradeoff-s to be made, the reader is given the trade space. I am recommending this book to all Java engineers on our staff.
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