Rating: 
Summary: Great beginners book
Review: Having a little C++ experience helped, but even to a beginning programmer, this book stands apart from the crowd. Being a Computer Management major, I have had to read and study my fair share of poorly written programming books. With this book I was able to get a grasp of Java concepts and apply my knowledge of C++ to gain an understanding of this language.
Rating:
Summary: 6 star rating! A very gentle reading on a complex language.
Review: Holy Grail found!!! If you are new to Java and want the best Java book to start with Herb Schildt's A Beginner's Guide is tops. I purchased other books that I thought were a good first book, but kept throwing them under the rug only after a few chapters because they were either choppy, frustrating, disorganized or unclear. My recommendation for learning java would be in this order:
1. Java 2: A Beginner's Guide
2. Java 2: The Complete Reference
3. Head First Java
4. Murach's Begining Java2 (innovative teaching layout)
Books that frustrated me as a beginner book and ones that couldn't continue reading were:
- Beginning Java Objects (intermediate book)
- Java2 SDK 1.x Edition (I don't like his math examples!!)
- Learning Java
- Java2 How to Program (poor order of topics)
- Java2 in 24hours (first 1/3 was good)
- Laura Lemay's Teach yourself Java2 in 21 days (manual reference type book, yuk)Good Luck PS: (whew, I'm glad my company allowed me to buy as many books as I wanted until I found one that I was comfortable with. Thanks Herb!)
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to digest beginner's book
Review: I (a beginner programmer) had been struggling with Beginning Java 2 (also a good book, but much more complex) and picked this book up to supplement. It is an excellent resource for the newbie programmer to pick up the basics of programming in a simple and straight-forward way. A simple example program accompanies nearly every concept. The author is not trying to make you an expert and does not give lots of details. Instead, he holds your hand while you get your feet wet and get comfortable (metaphorically speaking). I went back to Beginning Java with a lot more confidence and a better understanding of basic concepts. I only gave four stars because the book only covers about 12 topics.
Rating:
Summary: Great for the beginner!
Review: I actually am a little worried about using the electronic version of this book. Having a dual 19" monitor setup along with this book will spoil me for sure. On the main monitor I have my Eclipse IDE, and on the other my book open in Acrobat. The convenience cannot be matched by a standard book. You know those times you have a book that won't stay open so you find some heavy object to hold it, only to have it slide off and the book slam shut? Forget it with electronic books. More publishers need to do this! You can't beat the shipping costs and shipping time either... how about free and immediate? Man, if O'Reilly ever starts putting out Electronic Books I may never leave my home again. Oh, the book is fantastic so far. A huge imporovement over the overprice Deitel "Java How to Program" paperweight.
Rating:
Summary: Electronic Version Extremely Advantageous
Review: I actually am a little worried about using the electronic version of this book. Having a dual 19" monitor setup along with this book will spoil me for sure. On the main monitor I have my Eclipse IDE, and on the other my book open in Acrobat. The convenience cannot be matched by a standard book. You know those times you have a book that won't stay open so you find some heavy object to hold it, only to have it slide off and the book slam shut? Forget it with electronic books. More publishers need to do this! You can't beat the shipping costs and shipping time either... how about free and immediate? Man, if O'Reilly ever starts putting out Electronic Books I may never leave my home again. Oh, the book is fantastic so far. A huge imporovement over the overprice Deitel "Java How to Program" paperweight.
Rating:
Summary: Electronic Version Extremely Advantageous
Review: I actually am a little worried about using the electronic version of this book. Having a dual 19" monitor setup along with this book will spoil me for sure. On the main monitor I have my Eclipse IDE, and on the other my book open in Acrobat. The convenience cannot be matched by a standard book. You know those times you have a book that won't stay open so you find some heavy object to hold it, only to have it slide off and the book slam shut? Forget it with electronic books. More publishers need to do this! You can't beat the shipping costs and shipping time either... how about free and immediate? Man, if O'Reilly ever starts putting out Electronic Books I may never leave my home again. Oh, the book is fantastic so far. A huge imporovement over the overprice Deitel "Java How to Program" paperweight.
Rating:
Summary: a Miracle book
Review: I cannot express how excited I am to find such a book. I wanna email the author of the book and thank him personally for creating such an art. Best book for all programmers and programming concepts with of course emphasis of JAVA. Every concept is followed by an easy example and some questions. This book put me back in track in my major which is Compute Science. Otherwise, I'll be doing IT and Networking right now ( I love it though). HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for understanding Object Oriented Concepts and JAVA
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the novice programmer
Review: I disagree with those who have reviewed this book as suitable for unexperienced programmers. Java 2: A Beginner's Guide is a solid and well written book but in my opinion it is not a book for someone who has no or very little programming experience.
The first couple of chapters are fairly easy to follow but later chapters become somewhat difficult for the novice. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who has prior programming experience in Fortran or C but if you are looking to learn Java as your first real computer language you should look elsewhere first.
I would compare Java to learning calculus. Something you really should not do before completing arithmetic or algebra. I would recommend getting your feet wet with something like RealBasic (www.realbasic.com) which, for example, introduces the concept of classes in a much more manageable format. Another great approach would be the programming language of 4D (www.4d.com). Both of these are available as free full working demo downloads and would give you an easier slide into the programming world.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing book... Huge Help for Non-Programmers
Review: I haven't completed the entire book but so far so good. The book is a great help for Non-programmers that are trying to get up to speed in Java. The explanations, examples and exercises are awesome. The way the book is structured is also outstanding. If you are the type of person trying to understand what Java is about and being able to code without struggling with too much technical jargon, this book is for you. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning Java from scratch. My 2 cents
Rating:
Summary: Excelent
Review: I started studying Java by this book. I could understand every topic explained by this author, i never get confused. He really is a great teacher. Even the vocabulary he uses is clean and easy (this is important for a non-english native)
I always get back to this book to remember a concept that i had forgotten.
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