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Summary: This book is a good reference source for beginners.
Review: I used this book in conjunction with the lecture notes when I took introductory programming in Java at my school (Cornell University), and I still used it for my second Java course that was a more in-depth one. I did not even buy the book assigned for that second semester course. The instructors recommended Java Sofware Solutions, because they felt it was much better than many books they looked at. Just now I had to do some work in Java, and I can't find a lot of info I need in another book I was provided with. So I am glad I kept my copy of JSS from the college days.
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Summary: Index - What index??
Review: We where recommended this book by uni. As an experianced programmer I found it vertually useless. The index is awful, most of the referance I have looked up did not excist on the pages listed. I feel even with the uni discount that this book is over priced and nothing more that a door stop!! Why the uni. recomented it I don't know...
Rating: 
Summary: The book covers some topics thoroughly, and others weakly.
Review: I took a CS1 course using this book, and the book has strong points and weak points:The text excels in clarifying concepts through source code examples. Any program that is used to display a new concept is made intentionally simple and useless, except for the purpose of clarifying the function of a reserve word, a construct, etc. This allows the reader to quickly absorb the concept and apply it to his or her own programs. In addition, the book does not contain much "snow" at all. Clear and concise, in general. Some other string points are the chapter summaries, the "key points" that occur every time an important concept is revealed, the large API summary in the back of the book, and the various appendices in the back which discuss handy topics such as visibility modifier specifics, Java coding guidelines, and explanations of various Java tools that accompany the JDK. Now for the bad points. Sometimes, its conciseness is a bad thing. For example, its very short chapter on threads and the lack of a chapter on Java I/O are simply painful. In addition, some concepts which I had difficulty with, such as abstract classes, and even when I was first introduced to objects, were not explained thoroughly before a code example was displayed. In the enhanced class design chapter, it would have helped if the text stated why we would want to learn about data abstraction before we were shown code examples. However, after programming a second year in Java, learning Java technicalities in the process, I have come to appreciate the book for its clarity and conciseness. Nevertheless, a more thorough Java book with clear explanations for difficult concepts shoud be used for a CS1 class. Overall, the book is mediocre.
Rating:
Summary: Good book with straight forward programming examples.
Review: I recently completed a java course from a nearby college and this was the text book that was used. In my opinion, this is a fine book to use for learning the java programming language. The book has shown clear program examples of each topic, some were small programs and some larger programs that illustrated key point topics. I liked how the book had many appendixes such as glossary, API, coding guidelines, and many java classes and methods. The authors did an outstanding job on writing their ideas and concepts to be easy and understandable reading. I did a lot of my programming assignments just by looking at the book's examples and applied its concepts to my assignment. The book had minor shortcomings, in topics that needed further explanation such as event driven handling programming, program exceptions, and threads. My professor did a fine job in covering those areas in further detail. Overall, the book is a wonderful text and I recommend it to anyone that wants to learn the Java programming language.
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Summary: not a book to learn java
Review: You won't learn Java from this book. Ok, you'll learn some. But this is a book to learn how to write good software, in any language. Yes, it teaches only Java, but concepts like arrays, loops and oop are made more explicit so that when a student goes to another language, it's an easy transition. The bottom line: a good text if your a student, but don't expect to become a java programmer from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Introductory book
Review: Dr. Lewis does a great job of spelling out how the Java Object Oriented language works. Gives great examples and explanations. My first Java course was taught with this book, I still use it as a reference.
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Summary: This book doesn't explain concepts clearly.
Review: Not a good book to learn Java programming concepts. Get another book
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: This book helped me a lot, when I needed to learn about Java
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book for the Beginner
Review: Book is filled with all the main points for someone that is beginning Java Programming. It has many good examples that are easy to follow, however I think more time could have spent explaining GUI programming, and there is no explanation on how to read from and write to a file.
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Summary: An excellent intro to OOP
Review: I jumped right into a CS2 level course at a local college, not finding out 'til I was in that it was in Java. Even with 20 years of off & on programming experience, I was floundering. Then I bought this book (it was used in the CS1 course and many classmates highly recommended it), read almost all of it in a week, and went from floundering to the top of the class. This book is very clear, very easy to read, and has excellent examples. Add in the availability of the source code on-line, and you've got a great intro to Java/OOP. I especially like the different 'tracks' that you can take through it.
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