Rating: 
Summary: Not for beginners
Review: I found this book to be extremely frustrating. As other people have said it does have lots of examples. However the examples are unnecesarily complicated: they introduce advanced topics in the examples without first explaining them. I think the easiest way to learn is step by step. However the authors go up one step and then leap five steps ahead and then go back to the next step. If anyone wrote a computer program like they write a book, the computer would take forever to finish a task and would probably crash out of a sense of extreme confusion! If you have already programmed in Java this book may be useful. However I would strongly suggest not attempting to learn introductory Java from this book.Another major objection I have is that there are no answers provided for many of the problems in the book. This is supposedly so that professors who use the book don't have to think up their own problems. I think this is ridiculous. They should not sell this as a stand alone book. How can you learn from the problems if you don't have the answers? If you are going to ask ... for a book then all the answers should be provided. Let professors make up their own problems.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best 1st or 2nd read on Java available
Review: This book is almost certainly the best 1st or 2nd read on Java available (The only possible exception being Ivor Horton's "Beginning Java", another writer of high calibre). Its another testament to the writing skills of the Deitels and their pedagogical talents. The style and presentation follow the usual effective tried and trusted "How to Program" framework (introduction, review questions, programming tips sidebars etc), and leaves books like Horstmann's "Core Java" far behind in coherency of expression, continuity of discussion and general attention to detail. The best characteristic of the book is also typical of the Deitels "How to Program" series, namely, the well chosen abundance of illustrative self-contained examples, which though numerous, are each kept as short and crisp as possible so as not to lose sight of "the wood for the trees". A book without such an abundance of illustrative and pertinent examples faces the almost impossible task of discussing topics without becoming too abstract (an Achilles' heel of books such as Horstmann's). The book is very large, and those with no Java (or at least C++) may be daunted by the prospect of wading meticulously through the 1300 odd pages. However, the reader is in good hands, and will rarely feel the need to seek further clarification/explanation elsewhere. (On the rare occasions, as for example in the chapter on "Threads", where this might be desirable, Niemeyer & Knudsen's "Learning Java" (deceptively terse despite the somewhat misleading title) or Horton's "Beginning Java" are highly recommendable compliments). Such readers might also want to consider buying "The Complete Java Training Course" (basically a package containing the book, plus an extra Cd containing video sequences, and the answers to half of the longer exercises) instead of just the book, which might well cut down on the total learning time and flatten the learning curve. Another fact that speaks highly for this book is the obligingness of the author's to correspond promptly (I rarely needed to wait more than 24 hours for a reply, and often as little as 5 minutes!) via email. They are keen to help readers with any questions they may have, with the book itself, or even Java issues not directly related to the book itself. (Im sure the same is also the case for all of their other books too). As constructive criticism, here are some of the weaknesses of the book:-
(*) As with, it would seem, all of Deitel's books the index is so detailed as to be almost useless. There are often as much as 15 references for a single keyword, and none being distinguished (eg by bold print) as the main reference. This could really be improved.
(*) The chapter on threads (especially the second half) is quite shaky and could do with a serious face lift in edition 4.
(*) Solutions are not provided for the longer programming exercises (unless you buy the "The Complete Java Training Course" which also includes the answers to half of them. Don't be concerned about needing the answers to all; you wont really need any more than half since they are so abundant. The other half are intended to save university professors the trouble of thinking up their own exercises/exam questions, and answers to the other half are only generally available to such university staff).
(*) The Java SDK (1.2) and plenty tools (such as Text Pad editor) to get one up and running trying out the examples, are included on the accompanying Cd but for several examples the reader is referred to one of Sun's web pages where further software needs to be downloaded (albeit free, excluding telephone charges), such as the Java BDK. There's no real reason why such downloads shouldn't also be included on the Cd.
(*) It would be a nice touch if the (inline) comments in the book's code were in italics or different print to make them more readily distinguishable from the code proper. This would make the examples even easier to peruse quickly. I'm personally looking forward to the sequel "Advanced Java How to Program", and if its half as good as this one, it will be well worth buying. I'd also have no hesitation in buying any other of the Deitel's "How to Program" series either.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book for Beginners
Review: The book is one of the best. It explains thoroughly all the concepts in Java. The philosophy is to get you started or introduce all the concepts that Java has. Have you ever talked to some Java expert and he suddenly starts throwing different terms at you. Well after reading this book you would definetly have a good idea, what the java developer is talking about. This book covers Swing, RMI, Threads, Java Networking, Java I/O etc.. It also has some basic algorithms which are introduced in computer science classes. Hope you have fun with it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad book for online class.
Review: I have to disagree with most people about this book. I'm using it for an online college class and it's awful. The exercises are poorly written an often need further clarification. Many of the exercises put at emphasis on math in such a way you need to be a mathmetician instead of a programmer to figure them out. As a reference book it would be O.K. but it's not good for classes.
Rating:
Summary: makes a good doorstop
Review: I have gotten a lot of use out of this book. It is great at keeping the door open. The book is filled with useless, unclear, and repetitive information. All the topics that the authors present is also available for free at java.sun.com/docs. Many of the examples in this book are modified examples from this tutorial. For a good book on Java, read Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Excellent
Review: This book is one of the best technical books, I have ever read. It is progressing from the simple to the complicated in a very structured way, with excellent examples - easy to understand and yet not simplistic. I am really upset with all the people that pull down the rating with their negative comments. I would like to see their attempts at writing a book. If they like things cryptic, why not read Sun's documentation. If people like Deitel and Deitel worked for Sun and wrote Sun's documentation, there would be no need for books at all, because everybody could write code straight from the documentation. This book is a treasure and worth 10 times its price. I have not only learned Java in a month and become productive in our client/server application but have learned a lot of general computing principles from this book. Shame on you bad reviewers, you deserve bad books, bad documentation and bad, cryptic, user-unfriendly programs.
Rating:
Summary: Java for Kids
Review: My five stars come with a string attached. If you're in high school, and you have a teacher to help you along, and you've never used a compiler before, you couldn't make a better choice. Everything will be explained slowly, and repeated when necessary, in case it's been months since you read the earlier chapters. Anyone else will find the book boring and repetative -- very repetative. If you're older and want to work at your own pace without a teacher, try A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification. Its format is similar to this one's, but without the repetition. If you're looking for a fast introduction, not a step-by-step tutorial, try Java In a Nutshell.
Rating:
Summary: Java: How to Confuse
Review: I purchased this book as a text for a Java class. It is one of the all-time worst textbooks I have ever read. I stopped using this book half-way through the course as I found it made simple concepts grossly complicated. I used two other texts to clear the cobwebs: Holzner's Java Black Book combined with the exceptional OO book Java Objects by Barker. There are many problems with the book. The typeface makes the book visually unreadable: the authors insist on bolding all keywords, datatypes, methods, classnames, and code examples such that half the text on each page is bold. At least for the first half of the book, almost all of the coding takes place in the class constructors and main (with absolutely no discussion of why this is good programming practice). There is no sense of creating any type of OO programming hierarchy. Each chapter has redundant confusing explanations that don't reinforce the topic at hand. The chapters appear to have been written like a bill passing through Congress; everyone insists on adding their two cents worth, and at the end some completely unrelated topic is tacked on with no explanation of how this relates to the primary intent of the chapter. The sphagetti-code nature of the text makes it difficult to understand what exactly is going on and makes the book useless as a reference. Save your receipt and don't write your name in this one - you'll want a full refund.
Rating:
Summary: repetitive and unclear
Review: This book is very unclear and repetitive. They attempt to cover the same topics that are available for free on the sun web site, except they fail miserably. Not only will you not learn how to program by reading this book, you will gain no apprecation for object-oriented programming either.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent learning tool for java 2.
Review: I purchased this book for a class in Java programming. While I would not recommend this book to someone who has had no programming experience whatsoever, it's good for someone who has taken one or two beginning courses. It has a ton of examples, which are not only in the book but also included on a CDROM that comes with the book. For a beginner using this book to learn Java, I would recommend purchasing "Learn Java in 21 Days" as a supplemental text.
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