Java How to Program (3rd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Learning Resource
Review: I am a student at the U of W in the Seattle area. I am taking an advanced programming class that focuses on developing Graphical User Interfaces using JAVA. The book we were required to use for the class did not provide sufficient information to complete the required projects for the course. I needed another text that would give me the necessary information to complete the course projects but also give me a thorough understanding of developing applications using Java. The Third edition of Deitel & Deitel's Java - How to Program is an excellent resource for information.

One of the features I appreciated most is they use swing components for their examples and for their excercises starting at the very beginning of the book. As I work through the chapters I get plenty of practice using the Java graphical components.

Paul and Harvey Deitel provide excellent code examples in the text and they also provide plenty of exercises. These exercises allow me to practice the programming principles and provide relevant practice necessary for my profession.

Finally I questioned one of the statements in the book on GridLayout. I sent a question to their email address which they include in the text. Paul Deitel responded to my question within a day and provided me with a suggestion that corrected my problem. In the book they seem very concerned that they TEACH how to program. And they demonstrated that commitment in their quick response to my question.

This book is worth the investment. My thanks to Paul and Harvey Deitel.

Rating:
Summary: Good book with plenty of examples
Review: This is a decent book for its intended audience -- college students in their first year. It is also a good book for professionals that want to teach themselves Java.

I do not dispute some of the inaccuracies that other readers mention. When the software changes so rapidly that authors have a tough time keeping up, you have to put up with some errors. However here is why I bought the book:

(1) Reasonably clear explanation of language features.

(2) The Deitels are trainers. When I buy their book I buy their training experience as well. They know what kinds of mistakes novices make and incorporate that knowledge into their material.

(3) I like a book sprinkled with a lot of annotated examples.

(4) I like a book with a lot of exercises and a summary at the back of each chapter. Many times I find myself forgetting a chapter as soon as I end it. The summary helps reinforce my learning. As far as exercises are concerned, if you don't practice immediately on learning something, it will not stay with you.

That said, the Deitels need to be much less verbose (they could have done this book in half the pages and not lost anything). They also need a good editor -- there are places in the book where they repeat themselves way too much.

Rating:
Summary: An Authority in Java Programming
Review: Well organized and a very good value for money if you as a beginner or a intermediate programmer
would really want to dig into Java, I would recommend this book..
I have been looking for a while for books with emphasis on topics like RMI,Multithreading,JMF and JDBC and i must say the coverage of this book simply blows me away.. With over 1,300 in pages of step by step information with emphasis on every written line on the code(and I mean every line!!)..The coverage of extended classes and the Abstract Windowing Toolkit classes is phenomenal..I particularly liked the Multitier Applications Using JDBC from a servlet. Mind you people that this book is robust and precise since the only problem i encountered was in the update functionality and the serializatin in the transaction processing of the File and Streams Example but the deitel website provides the errata correction for that so no problem di ba? ..Im a big fan of the deitel's and i must say I thank world the Deitel's exist..Java rules...Mga Amaw gwapo ko!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Java How To Program
Review: I'd like to add my comments about "Java How to Program" 3rd Ed. I just started reading it, and I believe some of the poor reviews are due not so much to the content, but to the poor editing and bad visual design of the book.

For example, in the preface, there starts a many paged "A Tour of the Book", then on page 20 of chapter 1, starts a many paged, but slightly different "A Tour of the Book". During one of the rewrites, I imagine some cut and pasting occurred, and not caught. (Maybe that should be programming tip?)

Each chapter starts with an outline, and quite a few quotes from various sources. The quotes are not relevant and they are distracting. They should not be present.

The graphics that indicate performance, tip, etc., are too small and too complex. In fact all those things should be removed from the text and put as separate sections at the end of each chapter. Putting them "inline" ruins the cohesiveness of both the text and the tips. Tips along with the text can be done well, see "Code Complete" by Steve McConnell". In that book they are along side, rather then inline.

Going further, should one want coding tips, etc. They should again refer to the excellent book "Code Complete". I should think Java How to Program would be improved by removing the "coding tips" completely.

Maybe this book was rushed to print, a [how-to] book should not exhibit these types of editing and visual design mistakes.

Rating:
Summary: Heavy book, but not much to learn from.
Review: This book is unbelievably heavy but very shallow. (I feel sorry for the trees!) At first I thought it's not that bad, so I brought it to my office for reference. Every time I needed to look up something, I dug thru over 1000 pages and found nothing. After that, I never laid my fingers on this book again. It's been sitting collecting dust on my shelf for over 2 years. I want to sell it, but man, lots of people are selling it for under 2 bucks. I spent over ... and didn't get anything in return. Believe it or not, it's so heavy that you wouldn't want to carry arround. In the final analysis, you can carry a brick in your backbag and it would have the same effect. It's not worth your money!

Rating:
Summary: In-depth approach to Java
Review: A good book. Rich on the content and clear on the subject.
It is a very good book for the Java serious beginners.
Many topics that were not clear to me before reading this excellent book; now it is very well understood.

The author has taken so much time and effort to spoon feed us which not many have that patience today.

Rating:
Summary: Java How to Program (3rd Edition)
Review: A great book! Plenty of coding examples and enough information to help you understand what it's all about. Great to teach from. I would recommend this book to a seasoned programmer or to someone who is just learning the language.

Rating:
Summary: Not Worth it if you are new to Java
Review: In their efforts to parallel their "C++-how to program", the Deitels have only made their "Java -how to program" very confusing for a beginner -Java, unlike C++ is a purely object oriented language, hence it doesn't make sense to see real object oriented programming start in chapter 8 -while the reader is supposed to take whatever is presented in first 7 chapters at face value.

The Deitels spend way too many pages explaining every concept and that accounts for the sheer girth of the book and a lot of it is redundant.

This is a ok book if you want to see a lot of sample code or if you want to try the exercises but definitely not the book if you are a beginner.

I would recommend "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel if you are new to Java and then a look at this book to look at the huge sample code and try out some of the challenging exercises.

Rating:
Summary: Not for serious programmers
Review: Java is not an easy language but if you think you are going to learn it without making big efforts then buy this book. At first you are going to think that Java is so ridiculous that in just on evening you will become a programmer. That's the message behind this book. It's like a faery tale but the reality is very, very different.

This book is terrible. It shows Java concepts on the fly. A small example, an explanation... A small example, an explanation... There is no in depth discussion about anything and the begginer might find himself lost and discouraged in the task of learning Java. Even the way chapters are arranged is wrong! How can you start to build anything using Java without having at least a small knowledge in OOP, the concept over which Java was built on?

Try something else. Don't waste your money like I did. ... A CD with files? Wake up, guys! By the time you buy this book lots and lots of newer versions of every product on the cd-rom will be available for download (for free!). The Core Java series books are much, much better. And they don't come with a disgusting cd.

Rating:
Summary: Good book , but ...
Review: I remember writing a review of this book in the past, having read 5 chapters of it,was impressed at that time because i was able to create simple gui applications (i.e. user input, computations, etc.). But I nevertheless lost interest after 5 chapters because of too much explanation and thickness of the book , repeating each item quite fairly 2-3 times in every page. After 5 chapters, I still don't know the concept of OOP, much more classes and objects in general. I personally consider this a good book, but target audience should be programmers coming from other programming languages and not for beginners. If you want to get a good grip of OOP get SAMS Teachyourself JAVA 2 platform in 21 days, that's what I used and still reading up to this point, and after 7 days, I thoroughly understand OOP and the power of JAVA.