Rating: 
Summary: Taught myself Java with this- great book!
Review: This is a really great Java textbook. I used it to teach myself Java over the summer. It's really clear and explains everything pretty well, and I found the examples to be really helpful. Now I'm taking Java for credit at college, and it's a total breeze after going through this book over the summer.
In order to get the most out of the book, though, you have to do a lot of programming to practice the stuff you learn. I used Netbeans 3.6 (www.Netbeans.org or check out download.com) to do all my programming in. It sets up the font of all the different java programming commands the exact same way that this textbook does, which makes everything real nice.
The book is also designed in such a way that you can learn all the regular programming commands without learning graphics, if you want. It also has a good HTML tutorial at the end (which is missing from the 4th edition, sadly).
As for the CD included with the book, I didn't look at it, but Netbeans (the IDE I used) has everything that would've been on the CD. So you could buy the book used with no CD and still be fine.
Rating: 
Summary: More of a classroom companion
Review: If you find yourself raring to jump into the Java language, this...might not be the book for you. Although this is an introductory book to Java, proceed with caution. The learning curve could be hard to scale if you are teaching yourself Java independently or if you are unfamiliar with computer programming fundamentals. You could be jumping into the deep end of the pool.
This book goes best with teachers and lectures as a classroom text in my opinion. The topics covered are the basics of software programming, such as if-else statements, loops, recursion, applets and object-oriented programming. If you've never programmed before and you're learning on your own, there are clearer texts out there. O' Reilly offers several good books on the subject.
I guess an advanced language like Java will always be difficult to learn at first. I read this book twice - once on my own and once in a college-level class. The first time I found the explanations of the concepts clear enough but could not figure out how to apply them. Understanding the concepts are enough for subjects like philosophy and political science, but with computer science you have to be able to apply them with code. The examples here were far too few and general for me. What made this book alright for me were the lab work and classroom supplements. Those helpers unlocked the concepts of this book for me. Otherwise I could only tell you about computer programming and not do it for you.
Rating:
Summary: Java illustrated thoroughly for first year students
Review: Java is arguably the best computer language to use when teaching programming, especially for first year Computer Science students. This is mainly due to the fact that Java is easy to learn, widely available and most importantly free to use. For first year students who are just getting their feet wet, and trying to break into the complex and vast field of Computer Science, Java's wide acceptance in the real-world is certainly a big plus. But Java does have its flaws, and one of which is caused by the fact that it is free to use. Java is big, very big. A professional would have to spend his entire career trying to learn Java and its related technology in its fullness. For most professionals, however, one section is enough to build our careers on, whether it being Server Side Java, GUI and front-end, Wireless Java, Enterprise Java, Messaging, etc... The point is, if one is to understand and learn some of these advanced topics, one needs a good foundation and understanding of the core Java programming language.
Java Software Solutions by Lewis and Loftus IS that book. This book is self contained and had everything a first year Computer Science student would ever need. As I mentioned, Java is very big and there are lots of information available out there that a newbie would need to spend an unprecedented amount of hours making sense out of all the available information on this topic. The book contains the necessary Java API - the one's that were used in the book and some extra one's that are needed, so the student does not have to spend extra time searching for something rather trivial. The same goes for Regular Expressions, JavaDoc usage, GUI event handling procedures and many others. I agree that students need to be prepared and have to know how to find these types of information, but wouldn't you, as the instructor, like to have the option of not having to spend your lecture time telling your students where to download JavaDoc's usage guides? Wouldn't you, as the student, like to have all the necessary information you need at the tip of your fingers instead of having to search for something new all the time? This book is well packed with all the necessary and extra information required for the first time newbie students going thru a programming class. For someone new, having to learn to program and all the new concepts and terms is overwhelming, and it is rather nice to be able to go to the end of the book and get the information you need. The book also gives enough background and introduction to the topic that even a person new to computers can come up to speed with all the necessary information to get going with topic at hand.
How about the rest of the book? In one phrase, this book is well illustrated. That's right, illustrated. Code snippets, examples from simple to a large and rather complicated "PaintBox" project, using figures and graphs to demonstrate program flow and language syntax and inserting program outputs right after the program source code for easy access mark some of the illustrations of this book. The end of each chapter is used to wrap up the topic just covered with a "summary of key concepts" area, which is very thorough in fact, followed by "Self review questions", "Exercises" and "Programming projects." The answers to the "Self review questions" are given, and the exercises and the programming projects at the end of the chapter can be used by the instructors to further educate and teach the Java programming language to their students. Since this book is also CodeMate "enabled", which means students can view, compile, run, and edit select programming problems and all code listings from the text book.
If you want your students to succeed as Software Engineers or even good programmers, you need to start them of on a good foundation of Software Engineering best practices and sound engineering and programming guidelines and methodologies. Lewis and Loftus's Java Software Solutions promote best practices and object oriented techniques and methodologies throughout their book. Either it being simple UML class diagrams to further illustrate the design, talking about inheritance and why it's required or even coding guidelines and code documentation, this book it field with the necessary tools, techniques and methodologies to get your first year Computer Science students on the right track.
This book also comes with the required slides, tests, lab manual, solutions set and instruction's manual to aid the instructors in their teaching, and a CD packed with the source code, the latest Java (J2SE 1.5) and tools and goodies used throughout the book for the students.
Rating: 
Summary: Had to buy something else...
Review: This book was assigned as the text for my applications programming class. Even though I faithfully read and highlighted each section, I was still completley lost. While I normally appreciate succinct writing, this book is a little bit *too* right to the point. I don't find the explanations of key concepts to be thorough enough for a rank beginner like myself, and the code examples are not really all that helpful. In hopes of salvaging my GPA, I went and bought Learn To Program with Java by John Smiley, and found it to be much more useful. The book is written as if you are sitting in a programming class, with fellow students who ask very lucid and insightful questions. I recommend it instead, if you are looking to be hand-held through your first Java programming experiences.
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