Rating: 
Summary: If you're hungry for knowledge, this will starve you further
Review: .This book is a prime example of a 'deadline' that had to be met (during it's production). It's an obvious attempt to get the book quickly on to circulation in order keep up with other competitors, rather than understand the psychology of a 'novice' programmer.......................... (Looks to me it relied too much on the success/reputation of previous 'DUMMIES' books). If you're learning to swim.. you'll suddenly find yourself in the deep end... & drown (without warning)! If you currently lack confidence in your programming ability... you'll be lacking more after this. Rather than seeking knowledge... you'll be FIGHTING IRRITATION ! Recommendation : 'Beginning Java' (by Ivor Horton) - fully restored my confidence.
Rating:
Summary: not worth the paper it is printed on!
Review: After doing another 'hello world' you are swept along vague examples and plunged into multimedia and animations before you have understood the first lines. I must not be a dummie because this book was not for me. I recommend the authors to take a course on instructing so they will know how to do it.
Rating: 
Summary: Does not live up to its purpose
Review: Although this book is for beginners, it is very problematic. I think the publishing company farmed this project out to a developer without telling this person that the book was for beginners. The book starts out with a good primer of object oriented principles but then jumps into advanced stuff such as creating listeners. It does not lay out the lesson plans well the little cartoon graphics are supremely annoying. Other books in this series have been pretty helpful but this one is a bit of a disaster. If anyone finds a good introductory text for Java programming, please let me know.
Rating: 
Summary: Very rewarding if you keep at it
Review: As a long time (non-object) programmer and network administrator I picked this book up on a whim and began to try to program in Java. After a struggle, which I believe is the nature of the subject, which is never going to be easy, I finally caught on to what was being presented. I have been adding my Java applets to my web sites. But Java is not going to be for everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for novices!
Review: Despite the book's claim to assume no prior knowledge of programming, this is not true. In the second chapter itself the authors give absolutely no information as how to USE the compiler although it does adequately explain what a compiler does.The examples throughout are very vague and unsatisfactory.
Rating:
Summary: Ok I feel like an idiot now
Review: I bought this book not knowing anything about java. I had heard about it and wanted to see what it was all about. I bought this book and I didnt get anything it was trying to do. This book dosnt explain anything about the concepts and porpose of the code.
Rating:
Summary: Joining The Chorus--This Is A Lousy Book
Review: I bought this book on impulse at a store, and I've learned my lesson--read the customer reviews at Amazon first! This book is just wretched. If you are really a beginner with Java (I am, though I have done a little hobby programming in a few languages, and I'm not, in spite of how this book makes me feel, a computer imbecile) I urge you to stay away from this book. It will confuse you, frustrate you, and have you gnashing your teeth. There has GOT to be something better as an introduction to Java programming.
Rating:
Summary: What do you mean, "For dummies?"
Review: I couldn't get anything from this book. It was written without dummies in mind. The first 2 chapters were OK, but anything after that was horrible. The only thing good that I can think of was the cartoons.
Rating:
Summary: admittedly quite bad...
Review: I had high hopes for this book, after flicking through a lot of the Java books in the bookstore, this one really appealed to me because of the large text and nice diagrams. And while the book was pleasently easy to understand (most of the time), it just doesn't flow very well. I found that around page 130-140 I was finding out the stuff I was wanting to know within the first few pages. They also throw in a chapter on HTML in the most inappropriate place. This book seems VERY rushed, and this is obvious from the large number of errors. I was stuck on my code for a number of hours, before I got help from someone on IRC... they were like "uhh WHY does Switch always have a capital S?" and I replied "because this stupid book told me to *sigh*. Even the bonus pull-out "cheat sheet" that summarizes the whole book has at least one missing semi-colon. Trust me, get something a bit more... concise.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book!
Review: I have read several books trying to find one that would explain java in words that I could understand. I finally picked up this book and was amazed by the ease and clarity that it explained the information I had been so struggling to understand before. I would recommend this book to anyone who is having problems understanding the java language with no DOS experience! The author of the book Mr. Koosis is very kind and patient and very open to questions.
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