Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book to Learn Java
Review: This is an excellent book to learn Java. The presentation is great. The book has been divided into 12 modules, which really organizes it. It's really intended for people without any OOP programming experience. I would highly recommend it to everyone trying to learn Java.
I had previously purchased Deitel and Deitel's Java book and got frustrated with it. This book really did the job for me.
The examples are very easy to follow and don't leave the reading looking around to figure what the author is talking about.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent on the Java nuts & bolts
Review: This is an excellent nuts & bolts introduction to Java. On the basics Herbert Schildt goes to great pains to clearly introduce each concept, taking great care, regarding the order in which lessons are presented to not refer to the, as yet, unexplained. The "One minute drills" and chapter-ending "Mastery Checks" go a long way toward reinforcing the lessons. Excellent! The more advanced chapters on Inheritance and Multithreaded Programming could benefit from as much care and better examples.The author seems compelled to abreviate variable names, preferably to a single letter. These unnecessary abreviations make it like reading a foreign language, where you have to translate every word. The lack of self-descriptive variable names made reading more of a headache than necessary, precluding an otherwise 5-star rating.
Rating:
Summary: Tremendous Style
Review: This is the 4th Java Book I've read (should have been the first). This guy is an amazing instructor! He seems to know exactly the right questions to ask to not stump you but instead to get you to pull out the right answer in such a way that you'll remember it. I've read Deitel & Deitel's book on Java2, and while it is thorough, it seems like they try to make you feel inadequate. They ask questions in such a way that by the time I'm done answering it I'm frustrated and feeling like "Am I ever gonna get this?". Mr. Schildt asks the questions in his "1-minute drill" and "Mastery Check" sections in such a way that not only can you answer it correctly, but in a way that when you think about your answer you've also remembered it in such a way that it sticks. How does he do it?! I don't know, but I hope he keeps doing it! Terrific instruction Mr. Schildt!
Rating:
Summary: Nice and simple
Review: This is very easy to follow and does not assume any previous prgramming experience for real and gives very good explaination chapter wise.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book for Novice & Experienced Programmers Alike
Review: When I needed to learn the Java programming language very quickly for work, I read many reviews and narrowed down my search to handful of few books. I looked at copies of my final possible choices in a local bookstore and finally purchased Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" and have absolutely no regrets. Herbert Schildt's book was written for people to learn the fundamentals of programming in Java as easily and as quickly as possible. (Of course, each reader can go at his/her own pace.) After I began reading the book, I started to become accustomed to Java's terminology and downloaded Sun's free Java compiler online. Within a few days, I was writing my own simple stand-alone Window's applications and applets. After that, I started exploring more complex concepts. Herbert Schildt's writing style and book organization made it possible for me to start writing a complex, multithreaded, work-related application within 4 weeks. He begins the book with a history of the Java language; it's relations to C, C++ and C#; it's built-in security & portability; bytecode; and object-oriented programming. He then explores data types, operators, and program control statements before explaining the heart of a Java program: classes, objects and methods. From there, the reader is ready to be introduced to some of Java's more powerful aspects: inheritance, polymorphism, abstract classes, packages and interfaces. Next, what elevates Java over many other languages is its built in exception handling. Being able to track and locate programming errors is often one of the most difficult aspects of programming, especially when the program is large and complex. Java allows programmers to test various blocks of a program using the statements "try" and "catch". Some methods require the use of the "try" and "catch" block because of their potential to generate an exception that is outside of the program's control (such as file streams). The next very powerful aspect of Java that Herbert Schildt explores is multithreading. Seasoned real-time programmers will be very familiar with the concept of multitasking, but for many novice programmers, the concept of multitasking or multithreading (as it is called in Java) can be daunting and confusing. Herbert Schildt's explanations of how to use multithreading (and its potential problems) are thorough and relevant. Finally, Herbert Schildt explores the creation of applets. As your knowledge of Java expands, you'll find it very worthwhile to purchase a more comprehensive Java reference book that contains a broad list of the various classes and methods available within the language. For this, I highly recommend Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition", which is geared for J2SE 1.4. Overall, I rate "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" by Herbert Schildt with 5 out of 5 stars. Java is a great programming language, and Herbert Schildt's instructions make learning the language is painless as possible.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book for Novice & Experienced Programmers Alike
Review: When I needed to learn the Java programming language very quickly for work, I read many reviews and narrowed down my search to handful of few books. I looked at copies of my final possible choices in a local bookstore and finally purchased Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" and have absolutely no regrets. Herbert Schildt's book was written for people to learn the fundamentals of programming in Java as easily and as quickly as possible. (Of course, each reader can go at his/her own pace.) After I began reading the book, I started to become accustomed to Java's terminology and downloaded Sun's free Java compiler online. Within a few days, I was writing my own simple stand-alone Window's applications and applets. After that, I started exploring more complex concepts. Herbert Schildt's writing style and book organization made it possible for me to start writing a complex, multithreaded, work-related application within 4 weeks. He begins the book with a history of the Java language; it's relations to C, C++ and C#; it's built-in security & portability; bytecode; and object-oriented programming. He then explores data types, operators, and program control statements before explaining the heart of a Java program: classes, objects and methods. From there, the reader is ready to be introduced to some of Java's more powerful aspects: inheritance, polymorphism, abstract classes, packages and interfaces. Next, what elevates Java over many other languages is its built in exception handling. Being able to track and locate programming errors is often one of the most difficult aspects of programming, especially when the program is large and complex. Java allows programmers to test various blocks of a program using the statements "try" and "catch". Some methods require the use of the "try" and "catch" block because of their potential to generate an exception that is outside of the program's control (such as file streams). The next very powerful aspect of Java that Herbert Schildt explores is multithreading. Seasoned real-time programmers will be very familiar with the concept of multitasking, but for many novice programmers, the concept of multitasking or multithreading (as it is called in Java) can be daunting and confusing. Herbert Schildt's explanations of how to use multithreading (and its potential problems) are thorough and relevant. Finally, Herbert Schildt explores the creation of applets. As your knowledge of Java expands, you'll find it very worthwhile to purchase a more comprehensive Java reference book that contains a broad list of the various classes and methods available within the language. For this, I highly recommend Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition", which is geared for J2SE 1.4. Overall, I rate "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" by Herbert Schildt with 5 out of 5 stars. Java is a great programming language, and Herbert Schildt's instructions make learning the language is painless as possible.
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