Rating: 
Summary: Must have Java reference...
Review: This book has almost 800 pages of incredibly useful information. If you're unsure of how to do something in Java, it's a pretty good bet there is an answer in this book. The second edition includes coverage of the Java 1.5 release (such as generic types and enumerations) and updates or adds missing info from previous versions (such as the Java regular expressions API).Most of the "recipes" in the cookbook have reference to other "recipes", online resources or other books - and not always other O'Reilly books, which implies (at least to me) the author really wants to get you the best information possible. Also, both the Table of Contents and the Index are well laid out and will help you get a quick answer to any question you may have. The book assumes you have basic Java knowledge, but I'd recommend it for any Java programmer, beginner or advanced. There are a lot of examples included in the text and you can download the source from the author's web site. This should be at the top of any Java developer's list of books to own. Highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: This is an excellent book-it manages to make itself appropriate for both introductory and experienced Java developers. If you've ever looked at any of the books in O'Reilly's "Cookbook" series, you'll know that the book is organized into "recipes", which illustrate how to accomplish various development tasks in Java.
Many of the beginning recipes are pretty basic, but will be used by developers new to Java to get started. Recipes include setting up the IDE to work correctly, working with a debugger, and even an introduction to JUnit. The next few sections of recipes are similar to what you would expect from any "Learn to Program in Language" book. There is a discussion on strings and string use, numbers, and date time values.
As the book progresses, the recipes become increasingly technical. I was quite impressed to see a discussion of Generics in chapter 8, which were added to 1.5. Additional technical recipes include I/O, graphics and sound, and using sockets in Java. The author is able to successfully discuss a lot of different topics in a very clear and concise way. Additionally, I was both pleased and surprised to see the author include brief discussions on software patterns and agile methodologies, both of which are very much coming into vogue.
Naturally, this book isn't easy to read from cover to cover, but it was never designed that way. Much like an actual cookbook, it is designed to best be used as a reference manual. Experienced non-Java programmers will benefit from this book, which can be used as a good tutorial to learn the Java language quickly. Java programmers will also benefit greatly from this book, and will likely want to have it next to their computer as a reference manual. I would highly recommend this book to anyone either wanting to learn Java or anyone looking for a good Java reference book.
Rating: 
Summary: Keeps up the style of the first edition
Review: [A review of the SECOND EDITION, 2004] The salient feature that distinguishes this second edition from its predecessor is the coverage of Java 1.5. The overall format of the book is unchanged. There are over 100 "hacks" that address common problems a Java programmer might face. The grouping of hacks into chapters is quite logical. But you are expected to already know the basics of Java programming. This book is not meant to teach that, but to help fill in gaps in your overall knowledge framework. The solutions are typically easy to understand. That is the tenor of the book. You can quickly see if a solution fits your needs and then easily apply it. The 1.5 features are sprinkled throughout the chapters. Because the numerous changes from 1.4 are distributed over many aspects of the language. So Darwin correctly chose not to aggregate these into one location. Which also means that this book is not the place to learn specifically about 1.5 as a whole. (Try "Java 1.5 Tiger" by McLaughlin and Flanagan.)
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