Java 2 Core Language Little Black Book

Rating:
Summary: Good format! Simple (to adapt) code, helped me get going
Review: A good programming book doesn't overdo it. It doesn't necessarily give you entire batches of production ready code. What it does is give you core routines you can drop into your code to accomplish the task you're trying to do, especially if you're in the beginning to intermediate range. Then it's you're job to assemble the parts into a production whole. This book does that well. The code is very understandable and drops in nicely. Trottier also shows you some optimization techniques as well.

This Core name for this book really summarizes it. This is core 101 and everday Java. If you know a little Java this is a good book to get comprehensive with it. If you're advance there might be a few areas it covers you haven't gotten to yet.

For me I just wanted to be able to create some simple applets that took data off the Internet and from a database and did some special calculations and presentations with it. This book was helpful in getting that going. I knew little Java before that but did know some C, a lot of PHP and SQL.

I used the Core Language as a supplement to the Java Reference docs I downloaded from Sun and it helped a lot. It's sometimes hard to use the reference style of stuff until you've got some working code up. That's what makes this book useful, it got me going enough so that I could start experimenting outside of the core language using the free reference stuff on the Internet.

Rating:
Summary: Great Little Black Book
Review: I have purchased this book a few weeks ago and think its great. Brief explanations and to the point. I am just learning Java and I can quickly find help when I need it. It makes a great desktop reference.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been more better
Review: I read most of the online reviews for this book at Amazon and decided to purchase the book. Unfortunately, this book is not upto my expectation. I found two drawbacks for this book.

1. Many language constructs are used in the examples before they are described fully. For ex, the example on page 78 uses the synchronized keyword all of a sudden but it is explained at page 99 and page 278. This makes it somewhat difficult to follow.

2. The code listings are given for the example, but the output results are not given for most of the examples.

Thanks,
Balaji.



Rating:
Summary: Wonderful little problem solving guide...
Review: Target Audience
Intermediate Java developers who want brief explanations of syntax and working examples to study

Contents
This is a condensed guide to the Java language with a heavy emphasis on code examples that can be used to solve your programming issues.

The book is divided into the following chapters: Getting Started With Java; Essential Java Syntax; Blocks And Statements; Methods, Classes, And Packages; Data Structures; Files And Streams; Java Database Connectivity; The Internet And Networking; XML And Java; Advanced Techniques; Security; Internationalization; Development Tools; References; The Java Virtual Machine; Active RFCs.

Review
There are some people who can read an explanation of something technical and immediately grasp how to use it in a real program. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. I work best when I can read the explanation of how something works, and then see a working example that I can copy and use. That's where this book shines.

Each chapter starts off with an "In Brief" section. This is the "technical" explanation of the subject being covered, like classes or socket programming. After a high level explanation of the chapter subject, the coverage then shifts to an "Immediate Solutions" section. This is where you get the most bang for the buck. You'll find a problem listed, such as resolving a hostname or opening a server socket. A couple of paragraphs will explain what needs to be done, and that is followed by a code example that solves that problem. By reading the chapter and seeing how they solve a number of issues, you should come away with one or more ideas on how to code your own solutions.

If you don't have a solid background in Java, you will probably want to get a tutorial-style book before you buy this volume. It's billed as a "concise program solver", and as a result it doesn't attempt to teach the language to someone who is unfamiliar with it to start with. If you are beyond the basics, then this book will quickly pay for itself after a couple of solutions.

Conclusion
This is a perfect book if you are familiar with Java but occasionally need to look up a command to see how it works along with a code example. It bridges the gap between academic and practical knowledge of the language.