Rating: 
Summary: great for experienced programmers of other languages... ONLY
Review: Disclaimer: I'm an expert Perl programmer with 5 years of work experience, plus a little over a decade of additional recreational programming between middle school and college graduation in C++, assembly, Pascal, and a few dozen dead & forgotten languages. So when I decided it was time to learn Java, I wasn't interested in yet another book aimed at beginners who need to have the difference between a method and a property explained to them. I wanted a book that I could casually dig through over the course of a few days and emerge with enough basic knowledge about Java to be able to do something useful with it and have enough of a foundation to be able intelligently search for answers to my new questions on the internet & elsewhere.It did a decent job. Within a couple of hours, I was at the point where I could head back to the bookstore to buy Hall's "Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages" and go forward from there. My biggest gripe about the book is its inadequate coverage of Strings. Specifically, little "gotchas" about Java Strings that will PARTICULARLY trip up Perl programmers... like the fact that a String being "null" is not the same thing as a String being "" and the need to explicitly test for both cases most of the time. Admittedly the book had to gloss over a lot in a small number of pages, but strings are just one of those fundamental things that need to be properly covered... I'm glad I bought it; it served its purpose. If you're an experienced programmer, the book is a good starting point and bridge between knowing nothing about the language's details and knowing enough to make good use of reference-oriented documentation. But if you're NOT an experienced programmer, god help you... because the book definitely won't. If you already understand fundamental concepts like integers, operators, if/then, for/next, classes, methods, properties, compiling, inheritance, etc., you'll appreciate the fact that the authors don't drone about them for 400 pages. But make no mistake... this book is intended to teach experienced programmers who have already mastered one or more object-oriented programming languages enough to feel like they can more forward after a "weekend"... and maybe BS convincingly about their java programming experience at a job interview a few days later. It's not going to teach somebody who thinks creating a HTML web page constitutes "programming" how to write useful Java apps in a weekend, a week, or any length of time.
Rating:
Summary: great for experienced programmers of other languages... ONLY
Review: I picked up this low price book as a "project oriented" method in which to begin Java programming, using other books as core reference material. This book is not designed for that purpose, as it is instead an introductory book to programming, using the Java language. Personally, this book was not for me since I use C++ professionally and wanted to try my hand at a few small Java projects. That said, I wish I had this book when I was in my high school computer class. The first 100 pages offer an introduction to variables, binary data, and arrays, while the next 100 pages discuss if statements, loops, methods and classes. The last section in the book briefly goes into Java graphics. So, if you are new to programming and want an introductory book that offers good coverage (but not much depth) for a variety of basic (but necessary) computer programming topics then this would be a good resource. Otherwise I'd suggest looking elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: A Basic Introduction to Programming and Java
Review: I picked up this low price book as a "project oriented" method in which to begin Java programming, using other books as core reference material. This book is not designed for that purpose, as it is instead an introductory book to programming, using the Java language. Personally, this book was not for me since I use C++ professionally and wanted to try my hand at a few small Java projects. That said, I wish I had this book when I was in my high school computer class. The first 100 pages offer an introduction to variables, binary data, and arrays, while the next 100 pages discuss if statements, loops, methods and classes. The last section in the book briefly goes into Java graphics. So, if you are new to programming and want an introductory book that offers good coverage (but not much depth) for a variety of basic (but necessary) computer programming topics then this would be a good resource. Otherwise I'd suggest looking elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: A worthless book, probably written in a weekend.
Review: I used this to help me prepare for and pass the Sun exam. This is a good text for practicing many aspects of Java quickly. I found it to be a useful supplement to my library.
Rating:
Summary: Good Java practice
Review: I used this to help me prepare for and pass the Sun exam. This is a good text for practicing many aspects of Java quickly. I found it to be a useful supplement to my library.
Rating:
Summary: A pleasant surprise
Review: Once in a while you get your money's worth with programming books. JAVA 2 Weekend Crash Course is just such a book. For the relatively low price, I was not expecting much but Sanchez and Canton have done a very good job. The book is not perfect and it will not lead you to master the language, but what would you expect for a book that's designed to be read in 15 hours? Some of the information in early chapters (first 100 pages or so) seems to be a bit rushed, however. For example, there are a couple of pages on Multidimensional Arrays in Java but I don't feel the concept was explained very well. Is it a necessary part of most Java programs? I dunno. That was never explained, either. I get the feeling that this book would be best for those with a C++ background or Java programmers that need a refresher, as some concepts are not dwelled on for any real length of time - again, what would you expect for a "Weekend Crash Course?" I don't believe I would recommend this book to anyone new to programming, but for those with C/C++ experience you may be pleasantly surprised. I wish I could've given the book 3.5 stars. 3 stars doesn't quite do it justice, however 4 is a bit too generous considering the preface tells us that this book can be used by those new to programming - as I mentioned above, I disagree with that. In short, it's a great deal for the money. If it were $50-60, as many programming books are, I would not give it quite as good a review, but if the low price is tempting, you may just like what you see.
Rating:
Summary: A worthless book, probably written in a weekend.
Review: Save your money. It's a shallow tutorial with no significant depth. Makes me wonder if these two authors actually even know Java.
Rating: 
Summary: Weekend Crash(ing programs) course
Review: The first 10 chapters or so were helpful but by chapter 14 this thing was coming completely off the rails! Did anyone actually edit this thing? The book starts off with good examples. Then the authors get lazy and write things like 'Look at this source code on the CDROM, we're too lazy to discuss it here'. Thos shortcuts are annoying but when the text relied upon code on the CDROM for reference but the code is not even there, that's really shoody work (which makes me wonder if any editor every saw this *thing*). Compared to most technical books at twice (or more) of it's price.. maybe I got what I paid for. I decided to try to provide some helpful feedback to the authors so they could fix this stuff in a second edtion.. but alas BOTH of the e-mails listed in the text as contacts bounced. I'm not impressed with this book at all beyond the challenge to find and fix the bugs in thier examples. From this I'm learning some interesting things but that's not what I want out of a book. I can't see this being a *good* book for either novice or programmers those with decades in the trenches coding (such as myself). It's quite possible I could have read some websites on Java and come up with a better book than this....
Rating:
Summary: Weekend Crash(ing programs) course
Review: The first 10 chapters or so were helpful but by chapter 14 this thing was coming completely off the rails! Did anyone actually edit this thing? The book starts off with good examples. Then the authors get lazy and write things like 'Look at this source code on the CDROM, we're too lazy to discuss it here'. Thos shortcuts are annoying but when the text relied upon code on the CDROM for reference but the code is not even there, that's really shoody work (which makes me wonder if any editor every saw this *thing*). Compared to most technical books at twice (or more) of it's price.. maybe I got what I paid for. I decided to try to provide some helpful feedback to the authors so they could fix this stuff in a second edtion.. but alas BOTH of the e-mails listed in the text as contacts bounced. I'm not impressed with this book at all beyond the challenge to find and fix the bugs in thier examples. From this I'm learning some interesting things but that's not what I want out of a book. I can't see this being a *good* book for either novice or programmers those with decades in the trenches coding (such as myself). It's quite possible I could have read some websites on Java and come up with a better book than this....
Rating:
Summary: Worst Tehnical Book I've Seen
Review: Title says it all. The number of factual errors, typographical errors, incomplete statements, and misleading statements are amazing. Consider on page 267 where it states "If 0 is negative, or 1 is negative..." Far more dangerous than this obvious error are the ones that you don't recognize until you read the correct information elsewhere. Stay away from this book!
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