Rating: 
Summary: Very good reference for Eclipse.
Review:
Prof. Steve Holzner is an authority in Java and has many books to his credit. Prof. Holzner's
expertise and patience is well brought in this book with adequate explanation of the different aspects
of Eclipse.
The book is full of screen prints that adequately explain how the screen would look while using the
built-in features of eclipse. the author has taken the time to take different scenarios and ways to
work around the different problems encountered while using the tool to develop Java applications. to
demonstrate some of the features, the author debugs a sample program and identifies the errors
commonly encountered and ways to resolve the errors.
as mentioned at the beginning book, this book does not intend to teach programming aspects of Java but
the features and the nuances built in the tool. The author has taken the time to explain how the
tool integrates with ANT and TOMCAT.
although this book was written with Eclipse 2.x, the author indicates the features that would be built
in eclipse 3.x. the author's style is simple and straight to the point. it is a well written book
and an excellent reference on eclipse 3.0. the book has earned a place in my shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the cost in time saving.
Review: "Eclipse is where the action is in Java today, and this book is all about mastering Eclipse" - Says the author.
Eclipse is an IDE, an Integrated Development Environment that has a code editor with numerous special features that will be of use to the Java developer. The special features tied to Java include: a compiler, debugger, text editor, GUI builder and other components. They are, as the word implies integrated into a single package. Eclipse has an overall appearance like most of the other IDE's that are oriented around their own particular task. Here in a single book is how to get Eclipse, and then how to use it to its greatest advantage. Any IDE has its own little special points, and each of these are discussed here in sufficient depth to use them without going into so much detail that you can't spend the time.
I note that one reviewer says that everything here is in the Eclipse documentation. Yes, it is, but the official documentation is so difficult to read that you really can't get what you need out of it.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat basic for a cookbook...
Review: A recent addition to my Eclipse library has been Eclipse Cookbook by Steve Holzner (O'Reilly). It works well for my level of expertise at the package, but experienced users might find it lacking...
Chapter list: Basic Skills; Using Eclipse; Java Development; Refactoring, Building, and Launching; Testing and Debugging; Using Eclipse in Teams; Eclipse and Ant; SWT: Text, Buttons, Lists and Nonretangular Windows; SWT: Dialogs, Toolbars, Menus, and More; SWT: Coolbars, Tab Folders; Trees, and Browsers; JSP, Servlets, and Eclipse; Creating Plug-ins: Extension Points, Actions, and Menus; Creating Plug-ins: Wizards, Editors, and Views; Index
Like all O'Reilly cookbooks, this follows the standard formula. A problem is presented, a short two or three line solution is given, and then there's a discussion and fuller explanation of the answer. There are plenty of screen shots and coding examples to help you through each of the recipes.
Overall, the book will benefit new and intermediate users. The author covers quite a few of the features of Eclipse that make it so powerful, like refactoring, running the debugger, and other various tasks. You may know that these exist but not know how to use them, or you just may be ignorant of the fact that they even exist. In that sense, it's really good. The SWT portion seems to be more centered on programming with Eclipse as a secondary focus. Maybe because it's because I don't do SWT development, but it just seemed to be a bit out of place. The material also seems to be pretty basic for a cookbook. Usually the recipes are more beyond the basics and get into things that aren't quite as intuitive as they might be.
This will help me get up to speed on Eclipse, and I do like the book. I'm just not sure it's for everyone...
Rating: 
Summary: Handy Starters' Reference to Eclipse
Review: After getting used to the fundamentals of the Java programming language, a versatile integrated development environment like Eclipse would bring developers to next level of productivity, and Eclipse Cookbook is handy for the start. Readers are guided step-by-step with numerous illustrations about its support for tasks from creating packages, classes, methods to refactoring, and debugging. The book demonstrates Eclipse 2.1.2 with the difference of early release of version 3.0 being mentioned. Now when versions 3.0.1 and 3.1M are readily available, you might need to resort to online help for the exact updated steps. You will find the use of application programming interface of platform dependent SWT for building GUI with both AWT and Swing being mixed. However, it gets nothing to do with the drag-and-drop style of building graphical components. Web development is included but too concise. No elaborated features like performance profiling or modeling tool of round-trip development are described. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to introduce to target audience with various commonly referred plug-ins on tasks like integrating with different kinds of version control, validating XML, modeling UML, and J2EE support.
Rating:
Summary: A great book of tips
Review: Holzner's "Eclipse Cookbook" is an excellent sequel to his earlier "Eclipse". The books not only differ in content, but are quite different in presentation. While "Eclipse" is a traditional narrative overview and introduction to the major features of the Eclipse IDE, the "Cookbook" is task-oriented, offering tips on subtle aspects of Eclipse not in the first book. For example, the first book does not mention code snippets, but the "Cookbook" offers specific information on how to run them to test just a portion of your code. The Code Assist feature is discussed in both books, but "Cookbook" has the more detailed explanation of how to customize this feature, and add your own code templates. For sheer information on using Eclipse, the "Cookbook" is great.
Which should you buy? It depends. If you are not familiar with the features in Eclipse, the "Eclipse" book will be the right choice for you. If you have been using Eclipse for a while and know how to find the Preferences menu selection, and you have toyed with Code Assist, etc. but want some more detail on how to do specific things, then the "Eclipse Cookbook" is a better choice.
The "Cookbook" is delightfully easy to read, and its 333 pages can be read in a couple sittings if you are a techie (and if you're not, why would you read a book on Eclipse details?) The only problematic chapters in "Cookbook" are the same as in Holzner's original "Eclipse": the chapters on SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit). He tries valiantly in three chapters to address Tips for SWT, and he generally does a great job. But SWT is not Swing or AWT. If you know SWT already these chapters will be much more helpful than if you don't. And if you don't know the event delegation model in Java, then these chapters will be pretty much a loss on you.
The "Cookbook" is based on Eclipse 2.1, and all the screen shots are from 2.1. Holzner added to selected Tips a brief comment on changes in Eclipse 3.0 (which was officially released after the book publication). I did not find any glaring differences between the book and the actual Eclipse 3.0 product (www.eclipse.org). Some changes are evident in the layout of some menus and in Preferences, but nothing that will cause you to stumble.
Rating:
Summary: Cookbook? I don't think so
Review: I wonder if the folks at O'Reilly were duped into believing this was a cookbook, or, on the heels of their success with the Perl Cookbook, they decided to call more of them cookbooks?
Just taking a task, and calling it a recipe is kind of cheating. What are sections in another book: Installing Eclipse, Creating a Java Class, etc. are now "recipes". (Check out the Perl Cookbook if you want good example of recipes.) Another thing that was off -putting for me was the cross sell. It seems no recipe ends without a reference to the author's other book on Eclipse (also from O'Reilly!).
Now this book is not without merit; I found some useful tips. However, I don't think it is worth the price. I borrowed it from my library, and I am glad I didn't have to pay for it!
A book that I have found very useful is 'Eclipse in Action' from Manning Press. I highly recommend you at least check it out. Keep in mind that it, too, is based on Eclipse 2.1, but I found that most of the how-tos worked the same.
Just a few years back you could pick up an O'Reilly book and be almost assured that it will be great. Not any more!
Rating:
Summary: Helpful "cookbook"
Review: If you are looking at using Eclipse for Java development, this book might help. I'd say this would be beneficial to those who are notch above beginner to intermediate Eclipse users. If you are a brand new Eclipse user you might find "Eclipse" by the same author more helpful. There is a bit of overlap between the two books - the author makes references to his "Eclipse" book in several of the Eclipse Cookbook recipes.If you're already comfortable with Eclipse and are moving into SWT programming, there are a few chapters I found helpful in this area. Plenty of code samples to get started with SWT - which is why I'm keeping the book. I also liked the information on CVS and Ant. However, I did feel like the book was a little thin on details at time - I think there could have been a bit more than the 175 "recipes" contained in the book. For example, I would have liked to see a section on getting Eclipse loaded and running on different platforms.
Rating:
Summary: Helpful "cookbook"
Review: If you are looking at using Eclipse for Java development, this book might help. I'd say this would be beneficial to those who are notch above beginner to intermediate Eclipse users. If you are a brand new Eclipse user you might find "Eclipse" by the same author more helpful. There is a bit of overlap between the two books - the author makes references to his "Eclipse" book in several of the Eclipse Cookbook recipes. If you're already comfortable with Eclipse and are moving into SWT programming, there are a few chapters I found helpful in this area. Plenty of code samples to get started with SWT - which is why I'm keeping the book. I also liked the information on CVS and Ant. However, I did feel like the book was a little thin on details at time - I think there could have been a bit more than the 175 "recipes" contained in the book. For example, I would have liked to see a section on getting Eclipse loaded and running on different platforms.
Rating:
Summary: Great beginning, bad ending
Great beginning, bad ending
Review: Like the other O'Reilly book on Eclipse this book starts great, but then ends up off topic. In this case the first eight chapters cover basic Eclipse use from installation, through creating Java projects, refactorting code, and integrating with ANT. The book then turns sharply into basic Java project implementation, which is better covered in any number of Java books. This goes on from chapters eight through twelve, and only comes back to Eclipse specific in the last two chapters which cover writing plugins.
This is better than the other O'Reilly book, but I would have liked it to have stayed on course and to cover some of the more standard plugins that are being used in the wild. Great beginning, bad ending. I would recommend this as an introduction to Eclipse for anyone unfamiliar with IDEs, but this recommendation comes with the aforementioned reservations.
Rating:
Summary: too much padding
Review: The book has some useful information, but does not
go beyond the very basic. In light of this, it is
annoying that so much space is taken up with repeated
samples of the same code, and with more screen shots
than are needed. I've encountered this before in one
of Mr. Holzner's books (XML Complete), and I have to
wonder if this is done to pad the book to a length
that justifies the cost.
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