Jython for Java Programmers

Rating:
Summary: Just what a Java programmer needs
Review: ...to get to know hi-level dynamic languages like Python. Being the first book on Jython, it fills a much-needed gap. The examples are illustrative, and extensive use of interpreter sessions made the book easy to test and follow for newbies, and quick to browse for experts as well. The author also talks about "functional programming" style while stays practical. Assuming Java knowledge, the book focuses on Jython's added-value and the advantages of seamless integration. It sure looks like the authur got lots of first-hand experience and in-depth knowledge. Even "expert" can learn a thing or two from this book. The only downside: sometimes the examples are a little example for example's sake, they serve the purpose well but not as fun as I'd like; And it would make it even better if the book talks testing frameworks and maybe give a J2EE testing sample code. But overall it's excellent - I'll give it 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Great for making unit testing
Review: An excellent book overall, this book accomplishes what it sets out to do: teach Jython to Java Programmers. Like many who were unfamiliar it, I was under the impression that Jython was simply a Java version of Python, which it is not. Jython is a language in its own right, and this book serves not only as an introduction to Jython, but to Python as well, and a very good one at that.
Although I did not do every example in the book, as that would have taken some time, I did most of the examples from the first 6 chapters, and with one exception they all worked. I have enough confidence in the author that I believe most, if not all the following examples will work as written also. Another thing I appreciate was the author's notes regarding versions scheduled to come out, so that if my Jython version behaved differently, I knew why.
From an organizational standpoint, the book follows the standard teaching conventions of showing syntax and data types and moving up from there until classes have been discussed. The middle part of the book is spent talking about how to combine Java and Jython, a much simpler process than any other two languages I've seen, and then he discusses practical applications of Jython and Java. Although the examples are too simplistic for a real world scenario, they convey enough information to provide a model from which to develop.
My only real complaint with the book was the number of grammatical errors, which distracted me from time to time as I puzzled out what the author was trying to say. A good book, and one which the publisher should re-edit to make it even better.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: An excellent book overall, this book accomplishes what it sets out to do: teach Jython to Java Programmers. Like many who were unfamiliar it, I was under the impression that Jython was simply a Java version of Python, which it is not. Jython is a language in its own right, and this book serves not only as an introduction to Jython, but to Python as well, and a very good one at that.
Although I did not do every example in the book, as that would have taken some time, I did most of the examples from the first 6 chapters, and with one exception they all worked. I have enough confidence in the author that I believe most, if not all the following examples will work as written also. Another thing I appreciate was the author's notes regarding versions scheduled to come out, so that if my Jython version behaved differently, I knew why.
From an organizational standpoint, the book follows the standard teaching conventions of showing syntax and data types and moving up from there until classes have been discussed. The middle part of the book is spent talking about how to combine Java and Jython, a much simpler process than any other two languages I've seen, and then he discusses practical applications of Jython and Java. Although the examples are too simplistic for a real world scenario, they convey enough information to provide a model from which to develop.
My only real complaint with the book was the number of grammatical errors, which distracted me from time to time as I puzzled out what the author was trying to say. A good book, and one which the publisher should re-edit to make it even better.

Rating:
Summary: I was very happy with this book.
Review: I think this book clearly achieves what it sets out to do: Introduce Java programmers to Jython. The book gives a good introduction to the Python language, its history and various implementations. It covers all of the main areas that are important for any real-world programmer new to a language needs to know, for example threading. All of the important application-level topics are well covered: Embedding Jython in your Java systems, using Jython in web applications, developing Swing GUIs with Jython, etc, etc. There is a detailed section on the greatest strengths of Jython: How to inherit Java classes from Jython, how to inherit Jython classes fom Java, and how to make Jython classes look like Java classes (for jar/war files, etc). This book is clearly written by someone who has plenty of experience *using* python and jython, and plenty of experience *using* Java, and integrating the two. The style is clear, concise and easy to read, and always focussed on the main objective: helping Java programmers understand Jython. All in all a very competent book that will make an important addition to any Java programmers/designers bookshelf.

Update - two months on.

I can't sing the praises of this book enough. I've been doing some embedding with jython for the last month, and this book has had all the details I needed to do the job. While it was necessary to dip into the jython source, Robert's book gave me an excellent overview, and indicated if something was possible, and how to go about it. If I hadn't had this book, the job would have taken twice as long. An excellent investment.

Rating:
Summary: Great for experienced Java programmers
Review: I wish all other books could focus on one audience like this one has. Its goal of targeting Java programmers and getting us excited about Jython as a great tool for scripting, glue, testing, prototyping, and lots of other uses was achieved.
It doesn't waste time on details of programming or Java, which you're already supposed to know.

I've been using J(P)ython since the "early" days, mostly as a prototyping and quick testing tool. I'm happy to see some good books about this great language on the market (finally).

Mr. Bill's writing style is easy to follow, and the wealth of code examples almost forces you to read this book in front of a computer, learning more by trying each one as you read about it. I haven't run into any major typos in the code so far. There's so much good stuff in here that I haven't even made it all the way through, but I'll be back to pick up more tips as I need them.

The only reason I don't give this book 5 stars is that it's out of sync with the latest advances in Jython--but since the language is growing at least as quickly as both of its parents, that's to be expected.

Rating:
Summary: Great for experienced Java programmers
Review: I wish all other books could focus on one audience like this one has. Its goal of targeting Java programmers and getting us excited about Jython as a great tool for scripting, glue, testing, prototyping, and lots of other uses was achieved.
It doesn't waste time on details of programming or Java, which you're already supposed to know.

I've been using J(P)ython since the "early" days, mostly as a prototyping and quick testing tool. I'm happy to see some good books about this great language on the market (finally).

Mr. Bill's writing style is easy to follow, and the wealth of code examples almost forces you to read this book in front of a computer, learning more by trying each one as you read about it. I haven't run into any major typos in the code so far. There's so much good stuff in here that I haven't even made it all the way through, but I'll be back to pick up more tips as I need them.

The only reason I don't give this book 5 stars is that it's out of sync with the latest advances in Jython--but since the language is growing at least as quickly as both of its parents, that's to be expected.

Rating:
Summary: Great for making unit testing
Review: It's a great book, I use Jython for the power of making unit testing, you save very much time on creating new objects. Moreover, when you override the methods equals and hashCode (which is a good practice) Jython makes easy to test for equality, the book is a great help to get into more details about the tool.

Rating:
Summary: Jython for Java Programmers
Review: Robert W. Bill did an excellent job in introducing Jython which is the combination of two programming languages. The merging of Java and Python. Although intended for programmers with sufficient background in Java programming, this book can be a great tool for learning another high-level language. This book includes topics on: seamless access to Java classes, efficiency,dynamic types, introspection and dynamic execution, first-class functions and functional programming, Java security, and code clarity.

Jython for Java Programmers is like a book for beginners trying to lear a new programming language. Each chapter has sufficient samples of codes with a corresponding syntax for a particular example. At the end of each chapter, the author was able to clearly compare Jython to Java. Such comparisons include: statements, typecodes, types, and classes, errors and exceptions, synchronization, packages, GUI development, as well as instances and inheritance. The last two chapters provided topics on database programming and server-side web programming. The Jython programmer is given sample codes on how to make use MySQL, PostgreSQL, and JDBC in their Jython program. The book focused on Servlets and JSP in its last chapter. Although it is equally effective with all the Java technologies on developing web applications.

Jython can be an added high-level language for Java programmers. But the book assumes its audience has previous Java knowledge. So that discussions on class, instance, encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance were briefly mentioned. Thus, cannot be sufficient as an introduction to programming. Jython-related Internet resources were listed in the Introduction section. An educational advantage of this book is that it supports functional programming as well as object-oriented programming.