Rating: 
Summary: Excellent introduction to Java
Review: If you've some COBOL experience, this is easily the best introduction to Java around. It is written with clarity, has good examples and very well set out. It also contains a good introduction to OO concepts and design issues.
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Summary: Excellent intro for Java in business
Review: Looking to use Java in business applications, I found the examples very helpful and clearly demonstrated Java's power. Like some of the other reviewers, I find most books on Java to conceptual and abstract to be very useful - I need real examples...this book provides it.
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Summary: Excellent intro for Java in business
Review: Looking to use Java in business applications, I found the examples very helpful and clearly demonstrated Java's power. Like some of the other reviewers, I find most books on Java to conceptual and abstract to be very useful - I need real examples...this book provides it.
Rating: 
Summary: WAS a good book . . .
Review: The authors did a fantastic job of explaining similarities and differences between COBOL and JAVA, and even did a decent job of providing a good intro to object-oriented design. The examples, while being simple, are nonetheless well conceived and can easily be related to. I would unconditionally recommend this book to anybody trying to transition from COBOL to JAVA . . . except . . . it's out of date. It's based on the old JAVA 1.1, and there were major changes going to JAVA 1.2 (SWING being the biggy), and we're up to JAVA 1.3 now. Either get another book that's more current or wait for the next edition of this one.
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Summary: Java for the COBOL programmers-Advances in Object Technology
Review: The best introduction to JAVA I've ever read. What the authors have achieved with this book, in just over 350 pages, most authors have not achieved in books over 1,000 pages. The examples are clear, simply, business oriented and easy to understand. I would indicate this book even if you're not a COBOL programmer.Hope the authors don't stop here. Really a great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Haven't read it
Review: The only thing I know is that the author, E. Reed Doke is a pretty poor JAVA teacher, so I don't know how he can explain it in a book.
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Summary: A "MUST" for a COBOL programmer to learn or understand JAVA.
Review: This book is definitely the 1st one to read for a COBOL Programmer, (who has NO or "lite", "C", "C++", or "Smalltalk" background). Unfortunately the majority of the books on "JAVA" are written by people without any knowledge or "in depth" experience with COBOL, (and in many cases, no business programming background that easily identifies with a typical COBOL programmer), so they have no basis with which to relate the language concepts to experienced COBOL programmers who have worked primarily in manufacturing, banking, utilities, hospitals, retail, transportation, distribution, or similar general business, Corporate MIS, accounting & administration, analysis, and various related operational business mainframe backgrounds. [Numerically, we are more than all the rest of the language programmers put together and to my knowledge, have been totally ignored by this language market, (except by these authors)]. I also liked the examples the authors used ie, "BANKING TRANSACTIONS", [IE., "real world" activities which everyone has had to "deal with"; NOT like several others I have read that use "ABSTRACT" or "FAR OUT" examples... LIKE "How to program a Coffee Machine to deliver a "CUP OF COFFEE"; which only an extremely small percentage of programmers will ever use]. I wish I had had this book about 1 year earlier before I had spent so much money on beginning and intermediate books on JAVA to try and understand things that the authors of this book make readily easy to understand. I just hope the authors will also come out with the next level intermediate and also an advanced level JAVA book and build on the same examples as is present in their first one. In that case, I would throw away about 50+% of my current JAVA books and stick to theirs since I am confident they will teach me the same things in less time, better understood, and more useful.
Rating:
Summary: A "MUST" for a COBOL programmer to learn or understand JAVA.
Review: This book is definitely the 1st one to read for a COBOL Programmer, (who has NO or "lite", "C", "C++", or "Smalltalk" background). Unfortunately the majority of the books on "JAVA" are written by people without any knowledge or "in depth" experience with COBOL, (and in many cases, no business programming background that easily identifies with a typical COBOL programmer), so they have no basis with which to relate the language concepts to experienced COBOL programmers who have worked primarily in manufacturing, banking, utilities, hospitals, retail, transportation, distribution, or similar general business, Corporate MIS, accounting & administration, analysis, and various related operational business mainframe backgrounds. [Numerically, we are more than all the rest of the language programmers put together and to my knowledge, have been totally ignored by this language market, (except by these authors)]. I also liked the examples the authors used ie, "BANKING TRANSACTIONS", [IE., "real world" activities which everyone has had to "deal with"; NOT like several others I have read that use "ABSTRACT" or "FAR OUT" examples... LIKE "How to program a Coffee Machine to deliver a "CUP OF COFFEE"; which only an extremely small percentage of programmers will ever use]. I wish I had had this book about 1 year earlier before I had spent so much money on beginning and intermediate books on JAVA to try and understand things that the authors of this book make readily easy to understand. I just hope the authors will also come out with the next level intermediate and also an advanced level JAVA book and build on the same examples as is present in their first one. In that case, I would throw away about 50+% of my current JAVA books and stick to theirs since I am confident they will teach me the same things in less time, better understood, and more useful.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-paced, well-structured language comparison
Review: This book is extremely good at illustrating the Java language and syntax by using mainframe COBOL examples. Late in the book, during the pure O-O and GUI topics, the authors digress from COBOL comparisions and instead build upon Java knowledge established in earlier chapters. Personally, I would've appreciated examples drawn from Micro Focus or Realia COBOL when illustrating Java GUI concepts. Including the source code along with the book is a very nice touch; it gives readers a chance to see "correct" Java code instead of forcing them to (hopefully) type in the programs without error. I found only a handful of spelling and typographical errors in the book -- and all of them are minor enough to allow the reader to plough through without any misunderstanding. Perhaps inadvertantly, this book illustrates how well-suited COBOL is for solving business computing problems, even over Java. I recommend this book to mainframe COBOL programmers who wish to expand their language repertoire or who have wondered about all the hype surrounding Java. It won't make a COBOL coder into an overnight Java hacker, but it does establish a good foundation for eliminating the "mysteries" of Java -- before moving onto more advanced books.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent transition text for a mainframer mindset.
Review: This book serves as an excellent bridge for a mainframe programmer to learn JAVA basics and Object Oriented concepts. The chapters are succinct and filled with real world examples (not "hello Java" nonsense). Chapters 2 and 3 are just terrific. My favorite is the chapter on JAVA Structure (Chapter 3). The font is nice and legible for us over 50 and page layouts are easy on the eye. The examples are pertinent and do not talk down to you. The authors give line by line explations of coding examples and build upon them until towards the end of the book there is a realistic application. This is a great book if you want to get up to speed in JAVA. A word of caution. This book is just an introduction. Advanced JAVA concepts like SWING are not discussed. After absorbing this book go with the O'Reilly series: JAVA In A Nutshell and JAVA Examples In A Nutshell.
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