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Summary: Java 2 for absolute beginners - a great introduction
Review: Like all of his books, Herb Schlidt is a master in defining programming concepts in a very simple, yet very concise and easy to read style.I think this book on Java 2 will be a classic. It is extremely well structured into 12 modules which take will probably take most people 2-4 hours, or about 12 continuous days of reading to finish. No CD to keep the price low and the ability to download code examples online, mean you need an interet connected computer to effectively use this book. This book will probably bring Java2 to a whole new generation of beginning Java programmers. If you haven't learned the language and want a gentle introduction, you could do a lot worse!
Rating: 
Summary: Decent Introduction for Absolute Beginners
Review: Overall, this book is a good introduction to Java for those with little or no programming background. Concepts are explained "from the ground up" so that first-time programmers can understand them. However, for a book that teaches Java to beginners and covers nearly the entire Java language, multithreading, I/O, and graphics programming, 600 pages is not long enough to give thorough and accurate descriptions. I found many oversimplifications and half-truths throughout the book: "Static methods may call only static methods." Not true -- static methods may call non-static methods if called on an explicit reference. "A call to a superclass constructor must be the first statement in every constructor." Not true -- you can call the current class's constructor with "this" instead of "super". This is an important technique called "constructor chaining." "Wait and notify may be called only from synchronized methods." Not true -- they may be called from non-synchronized methods as long as they are called from a synchronized block and called on a reference to an object the thread holds a lock on. The explanation about how Java "passes objects by reference" confuses many beginning Java programmers, and the trick of passing an Integer to simulate passing an int by reference doesn't work because Java passes references by value and the wrapper classes are immutable. The explanation about method overloading supporting polymorphism is confusing because which overloaded method to call is decided at compile-time, whereas polymorphism means that the method to call is decided at run-time. There are numerous examples that demonstrate the mechanics of Java without showing how the constructs should be used in an actual Java program. The example of a finalizer neglects to call super.finalize() as all finalizers should. The example of a catch block sweeps the caught exception under a rug instead of recovering from it. The example of a static initializer simply prints a message to show that it was executed instead of doing something useful like loading a class or library. Readers who learn Java from this book should be prepared to study a more thorough and accurate Java programming book after this one. For those who just want to program in Java as a hobby, this makes a decent introduction to the topic. Just be aware that not everything the book says is true or as simple as it appears.
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Summary: for math majors only
Review: The book is well organized and the text easy to follow. However, unless you are into heavy math programming look else where. All the examples are mathmatical and not relevant to what most of us program. I loved his C and C++ books so this left me disappointed.
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Summary: Great introductory text, only covers applets
Review: The book was a great introduction to the basic tools and techniques you need to get started in Java. I was particularly pleased by the coverage of threads/multithreading. I was disappointed that the server was neglected, but what do you expect from an introductory text? This book was touted as being a book which teaches programming in the Java environment from the ground up. As an experienced programmer, I can say that the book did cover all of the topics a beginning programmer would need, BUT the author fell short in the method/function department. Functions/methods/services are too important to buzz by in less than a chapter. You need to really dig in and get dirty to teach functions properly. Don't let me get too negative though, the book was extremely well written and a pleasure to read. I felt like I was making steady progress throughout the text. The examples were fun and (best of all) they worked.
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Summary: Final Comments
Review: The only limitation about this book is that I wish it had more test programming questions. To that end, I have been using a book called "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckle which I downloaded for free from the net. It has a lot of good programming questions at the end of each chapter which I have been working through. The book is geared more for experienced C/C++ programmers, but with a little effort, a beginner should be able to get through most of the problems. In deference to the Schildt book, when I don't understand something, I often find myself going back to his book, finding the needed topic, and - boom - there is the explanation, clear and to the point. Good luck!
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Summary: Fantastic, logical intro to the language
Review: This book is an excellent "first book" to get for learning Java. The author does a fine job of logically progressing through topics. The author seems to magically know your next question and answer it in the next section. I picked this up and also Ivor Horton's Java 2: A Beginner's Guide. Horton, besides being extremely verbose, jumps around a lot. I often found myself asking "Why is he bringing that up now?" when reading that book. This book also has a nice balance of code and explanation. A good deal of code and clear explanation of it. It's not dumbed down and it's not over the top. Highly recommended. (Also highly recommand the Java Cookbook from Darwin/O'Reilly).
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Summary: Very Readable, Plenty of information....
Review: This book is the required textbook for my programming class at Northeast Career Center. I found the book to be very easy to use, especially for whose only experience is in HTML and JavaScript, with no Object Oriented Programming. THe book had me writing simple programs using statements, variables, and for loops, which is more than i can say for my instructor....
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Summary: No Copy & Paste. You have to type everything by hand
Review: This is a very good beginner's book. The only problem is that Adobe Reader will not let you copy and paste the code samples. The function is disabled, and you have to type in all of the code by hand. I am not sure I would buy this book again because of this. I have left this book behind and moved onto more user friendly books. What a waste.
Rating:
Summary: No Copy & Paste. You have to type everything by hand
Review: This is a very good beginner's book. The only problem is that Adobe Reader will not let you copy and paste the code samples. The function is disabled, and you have to type in all of the code by hand. I am not sure I would buy this book again because of this. I have left this book behind and moved onto more user friendly books. What a waste.
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Summary: Thank you for writing this book!
Review: This is an excellent book for beginning programmers who want to learn Java. The author does a great job of introducing programming concepts in an easily digestable manner. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn object oriented programming with java.
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