Java: An Introduction to Computing

Rating:
Summary: A class book that achieves its object
Review: I am planning to teach Java to biosciences graduates as a first language for the first time, having used a subset of C++ up to now. There are a lot of books on Java, but not so many that are suitable for mature beginners. The question is, am I about to endorse this as the course recommended text? The answer is yes - it's pretty much the book I wish I had written.

The author of a book like this has to face some difficult decisions: how soon do I talk about objects and classes? Do I use applets or applications? If applications, how to avoid making all the methods in my main class static? Do I use simplified I/O classes? And so on. I think Adams et al have made the right decisions. Object-centred design is brought in right at the beginning and provides a framework for translating from the problem domain to the program domain. There aren't any sudden leaps in complexity - GUI programs are introduced alongside console applications and fully-fledged OOP appears about two-thirds of the way in. Examples are interesting and there are some good suggestions on programming practice like including preconditions in method documentation where applicable.

Overall the book is well-presented and good value (you get a CD and there is a very useful web site). I like the sections on topics like ethics and AI, and the treatment of data structures. The quizzes are very good too. There are just a few niggles: easy I/O classes are provided on the CD, but I couldn't find advice on where to put these in order to run the console examples which all contain an import statement. I'm not totally convinced about introducing static methods as the norm, and I don't see the point of a list of the names of all the classes in Java SE 1.3 - a glossary would be more helpful. But these are minor and can be sorted out in later editions and through the web site - as an introduction to programming and computing the book represents a worthwhile addition to the literature and I (and I hope my students) will be very grateful for it.

Rating:
Summary: Good As a Review
Review: I have faced with this book in the Fall 2001 computer science course "Data Structures and Algorithms". As a novice to Java, I think this book does not cover enough introductory issues such as how importing of the libraries work, what are the installation instruction of JDK. They do not even give us any clue how to set up ann lib without using JBuilder. The documentation on the CD-ROM is for JBuilder users only. But overall book structure is very good.