Rating: 
Summary: John Zukowski knows Collections
Review: ...This book is like having John sitting next to you explaining what collections are and how to use them to your advantage. This book covers collections like no other book I have read so far. Even a Java beginner can use this book. Most Java books rely on the old formula that a Java beginner is a programming beginner and to that extent write tiring convoluted explanations about Java topics. John is not that kind of writer. He dives straight to the point and avoids nonsense examples. His examples are short and very powerful. John Zukowski is for Java as Tom Swan was for C++. His books are now my most prized possessions in my Java books collection.
Hats off to John...
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Summary: Excellent Book!!!
Review: Although I use this book all the time, writing a review about it proved very difficult. For my revised review, I will attempt to explain how the book helps me. For the most part, like every human, I remember I remember things pretty fast. However, when it comes to collections, I tend to forget some of the conversions between Arrays and ArrayLists for example. This is where this book comes in handy. Besides training you on what to do with collections, it also serves as a very good reference book. Most, if not all colleagues I know are addicted to the book's concise content. There is no fluff in this book. John does a good job at explaining Vectors, ArrayLists, Arrays, and so on. The book does explain some of the lesser-known collections; however, since I do not use them, I cannot comment on that.
Bottom line: Buy this book if you want to be efficient in Java Collections. Even though, the book does not cover Java 1.5 (Java 5.0), it still serves as one of the best guides to Sun's Java collections.
--Willhelm Lehman
Rating: 
Summary: Everything you ever wanted to know about Java Collections...
Review: Everything you ever wanted to know about Java Collections...including some things that you probably didn't want to know!!!This is an excellent book and coverage of this important topic is long overdue. I really like the detailed method by method explainations and I also like the attention to the subtle detail provided to call out semantic differences between often very similar classes/interfaces. The best examples in the book (in my opinion), are the PriorityQueue and the Multimap since they are real-world collections that I would be able to use immediately. I thought the diagrams in the book were extremely well done. The use of UML was a great choice...I was able to read and understand the relationships between classes and interfaces without having to learn "yet-another-object-modeling-language". I read the book front-to-back, but I'm not sure that you will need to...The sections on each collection interface and implementation form a great reference...I will likely re-read individual chapters the next time I need to use one of the collection classes. Don't skip over Part I (Historical Collection Classes), I've been working with Java for years and I still learned something about arrays! All and all, it is money well spent if you want detailed information on the Collections support in the Java language.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!!!
Review: I am a tech architect in web content management consultancy business. Many data structures and data manipulation algorithms need to be employed in a professional manner in web content management and deployment. I have read many web related Java books released so far and closely looked at most of them. But there wasn't any other book on Java Collections as John's book. This book explains Java collections and their uses in-depth. The concepts are clearly explained and examples are easy to follow. The book is definitely good for beginners to experienced architects. Besides showing off the built-in algorithms available for manipulating collections, the books also gives tips on defining custom collection classes. The discussion and tips on the interactions between collections and threading are very useful for developing codes with thread-safe collections. This is a great book! I would definitely suggest you get this book if you need to deal with data structure and manipulation, and JSP page development.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a bad book, but way to large for the subject
Review: I can't say this was a bad book - it is well written and covers the subject pretty completely. The problem is that it is too large a book for what it covers. It could have been 25% the size and probably more useful if it had charts instead of pages. Also, I find it a little annoying that the api tables don't show the parameters or return types, you have to read the method descriptions to find that. Also, I would have liked to see an appendix with UML diagrams for the Collections framework. The diagrams are scattered throughtout the book, but they are not summarized in one appendix where you can review all of them. Also, I don't think the author went deeply enough into sample uses for the various collections - I found myself asking - when would you ever use a HashSet? Again, the book is good and fast reading, but I think you can get all of the information from this book and more if you put your money into something like Core Java Advanced features - that would be a lot more information for the money.
Rating:
Summary: Honest attempt but lacking depth
Review: It's nice to see a whole book devoted to a fundamental but often underestimated subject in "commercial programming" like data structures and sorting and searching algorithms. (Ever heard: "well, let's just use and ArrayList, what else could we do?" or "will'll just dump it in a Hastable"). This book gives a very readable and clear overview of the main functionality of the Java Collections APIs and can make a decent introduction for someone just starting out with the language, but is definitely lacking depth and solid and interesting code examples and applications. So, I recommend the book only if you are a newbie to Java and data structures in general. Unfortunately, most of the books on Data Structures in the market will put you off with their pompuous academic style and horrible price, since they are created as textbooks to rip off CS students. A sound, detailed, no bs, up to date, code intensive technical text on the Java collections API is still sorely missing.
Rating:
Summary: No Philosophy Here...
Review: Java Collections by John Zukowski is a good book. If you're a developer that needs to know "HOW TO DO", this is a book for you. No nonsense, no philosophy, talks straight to the point, and... it's clear... Here are a few comments that I gathered while reading the book: 1. The book is wisely organized into two main sections: Historical Collections and Collections Framework. Programmers would find interest in both sections. The old collections did not disappear from the Java language. The historical collections were reorganized and some were re-written by SUN because of the urgent need for more sophisticated data structures and data manipulation abilities. 2. Early releases of the Java language frustrated many developers because they were not able to perform simple tasks such as sorting and searching. They had to incorporate third party libraries to assist with these simple tasks. The new Collections Framework enables programmers to concentrate on business logic rather than being bugged down by the language deficiencies. Part 2 of the book demonstrates the improvement that was applied to the language and how collections framework makes our lives easier... 3. The source code is very clear, there are enough class hierarchy diagrams and illustrations. 4. The only issue that I have with the book is the addition of the Colt and JGL, the alternative Collection Libraries. I'm not sure why they were brought into this context. 5. Suggestion: The book is organized by collection names such as Sets, Lists, Maps etc. Since this is a book about "HOW TO DO" things, it'd be nice to see an index of things that you need to do such as sorting, searching and comparing that point to collections that can carry these tasks.
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Summary: Java Collections
Review: Java Collections is broken into three basic sections. The first section describes the Java historical collections classes, and offers tips on optomizing and some more advanced techniques. The second section describes the Java Collections Framework, which was introduced with the release of Java 2. And the third section describes some of the other collection libraries available for Java programmers. The book is well organized and is an easy to use reference. The contents and appendices allow the reader to only read/use the chapters that are of interest. The example code given in the book could be easily adapted for many programming uses. The book also offers tips on choosing an appropriate data collection type. While the code is not included on a CD with the book, it is available on line. The book is not intended for a beginning programmer. While it does assume that the target audience has some experience with Java programming and a basic understanding of data structures, it also does a fairly comprehensive job of explaining the data collections and methods of the Framework. The text and coding examples are supplemented with easy to follow diagrams, and useful tips and warnings.
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Summary: Java Collections
Review: Java is mostly useless without the use of collections. And this book explains Java collections beautifully. A must-have.
Rating:
Summary: Just what the doctor ordered
Review: Java is mostly useless without the use of collections. And this book explains Java collections beautifully. A must-have.
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