Rating: 
Summary: A hopefully useful review of this book
Review: I have waited to write this review until I had finished the book cover-to-cover in order to give a fair review. I bought this book because of the author Herbert Schildt. I have read several of his books and found them all to be informative, easy to understand and well written. While I was disappointed in some aspects of this book, overall I liked it. I think, however, everyone should know what this book has to offer prior to buying it. It may not suit the needs of some potential buyers.This book is broken up into four sections: The Java Language, The Java Library, Software Development Using Java, and Applying Java. The first section was the best and most detailed section of the book. It goes from page 4 to page 340 and is an excellent tutorial for learning the Java language. It doesn't talk about the AWT, applets, or any graphical programming for that matter, but gives the reader a firm foundation with which to move into those more interesting Java programming areas. This section alone was worth the price of the book. (while I agree with another reviewer that Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java was a great book, I like this one better because it doesn't keep referring back to C/C++ all the time). From the start of the second section through the end of the book, this book takes on a different approach. Instead of detailed descriptions as offered in the first section of the book, it begins to be an overview. Many topics are touched upon and many examples are given, but the reader is not given enough information or depth in these chapters to make them very useful. The bottom line is, this book provides a firm understanding of Java's syntax and object oriented programming. After that it provides brief glimpses of the many kinds of programming you can do with Java. If you don't know where you want to go with Java, this book is, in my opinion, the best way to sample Java enough to make your decision. If your purpose in wanting this book is to be an applet programmer (or do any graphical programming for that matter), I think you would do better to read the first section of this book (to page 340) and then read the Graphic Java books, volumes I, II and III, which cover the AWT, Swing and 2D API respectively.
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Summary: The Complete Reference. Java 2
Review: Title: The Complete Reference. Java 2 ,
Edition: Fourth Edition
Author: Herbert Shildt
City: Berkeley, California
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Published Date: ??? Since, I had been reading another Java books, I can tell it is not for study for a test. It is more for a consulting your programming doubts on paper rather than try to find answers on-line. It give you a lot of details(See:Chapter 5-Control Statements) that other books don't. If you are a Java Beginner that it does not come from C++ world (or you are not interested), just like me, you would like to eliminate all those references from the author to the C++ language that toke you out of focus for seconds. I mostly found those on the "NOTE" section after some paragraph, but the most dificult to digest are those embedded inside a paragraph. I would like to see more visual numerations (as bullets) to classify some information like when discuss different concepts and types. Rates:
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a) Overall value of the book:3 (Does a good job as a reference tool due to extensive and detail of explanations)
b) Instructional value of the book: 3 (Does a good job as a teaching tool, due the comments after each sample code program)
c) Reference value of this book: 4 (This book has earned a valued place on my reference shelf)
Rating: 
Summary: A great reference and learning book
Review: This book is a great reference and learning book for any Java programmer from beginner to advanced. I've many other Java books but I'm only carrying this book anywhere I go.
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Summary: great book !!
Review: You all might find it surprising, but this was the book I used to learn Java!! I did know C++, but not from an advanced level. yet this book was all I used to get me started in Java and it surprisingly does a great job even though its intended to be a reference text. The pattern followed by the book is excellent, it has just the right combination of detail and examples and reference. Highly recommended for the Java programmer.
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Summary: Herbert Schildt is the Best
Review: This review is less a review than an endorsement---unpaid. Regarding my credentials, I have written software for a (good) living for decades. Besides many books by others, I've read several of Mr. Schildt's books, from those in C in the last century to those in Java in this one. All of his have been outstanding. In the blurb on the back of one of his books, it states that Herbert Schildt is the world's best writer on programming languages. High praise indeed. But true!
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Summary: A great reference and learning book
Review: This book is a great reference and learning book for any Java programmer from beginner to advanced.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent
Review: This is the best programming book I have ever read in my life. Period.
I was a PROLOG programmer before reading this, but then as I read the book I fell in love with Java and switched to Java.
Don't even hesitate to buy it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best programming language books I have seen
Review: I have purchased this book mainly because I already knew the author and I did not get disappointed. The book is very well written, covers probably all the main topics of J2SE and even something of J2EE, such as Servlets. I really recommend this book for anyone trying to learn Java.
Rating:
Summary: very good book
Review: it can be used as a reference manual or as a tutorial
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: I found this book very useful for learning Java (I am using it while I also read "Thinking in Java"). I am a beginning programmer, knowing a little html and vbscript so I don't have a background of C++ or C under my belt. This book takes you step by step and explains concepts that you build on to understand object oriented programming, classes, methods and so on. If you know C++, you won't have a problem at all. The examples are perfect if you are patient enough to type them in. I didn't find the downloadable .lst code very helpful, but the examples are correct in this book.
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