Introduction to Java Programming with JBuilder 4/5/6/7 (2nd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Near-excellent book
Review: I think this book is near-excellent. I have a great deal of programming experience in other languages, so I cannot speak for those who have had no programming experience. But for those who have, this book is terrific. If you want to get into Java, you might take a class that begins with GUI right away. This is a mistake, and the author recognizes this. He starts with basic programming fundamentals and then he explains object-oriented concepts in the two most important chapters 6 and 8. Only after you are comfortable with inheritance, constructors, and interfaces does he go into Swing. The Swing chapters are fun! You should do all the exercises. The only drawback to the book is that there are lots of typographical errors. But the author posts Errata on his web site and does respond to e-mail, so you can notify him when you see a mistake. Speaking of the web site, he has tests that you can take. These tests are not easy. He really tests your knowledge. I usually get a score in the 80s because there are many trick questions. But you learn to appreciate them because they really get you to study closely. I recommend this book to programmers experienced in other languages who are just now beginning Java. If you are new to programming, you may want to try another book, but chapters 1 through 5 should help you if you want to stay with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This is a great book if you learn by example like I do. This is a college freshman level book. It was used at Texas A&M in 2002-03 and I believe it is still in use in 04. If you learn better by example than by pages and pages of theory, this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Java Text!
Review: This is one of the best Java texts I have come across, and being a computer scientist myself, I have seen many. If you truly want to learn the concepts of Java programming, by means of well-chosen, hands-on examples, and from an excellent teacher and explainer to boot, then this is the book for you. A special forte of this very readable text is the balance the author strikes between explaining object-oriented principles on the one hand and imparting practical programming and software-engineering knowledge on the other.

But the greatest plus of this book are the numerous brief programming examples that serve to elucidate salient points. There are literally hundreds of them, often just a few lines of Java code that illustrate some "popular" mistake, or some important feature of the language. Like a good coach, the author guides the reader's training by means of these exercises; he also knows exactly where the pitfalls are, and shows how to avoid them.

Two caveats. First, this book covers Java up to the Level 1 Java certification exam. If you are looking for JDBC database programming, you won't find it here. Second, the title of the book may be slightly misleading insofar as you will find JBuilder explained well, but only to the degree needed to program the examples of the book. A deeper explanation of JBuilder along with Java database programming and other advanced concepts may be found in the same author's book, "Rapid Java Application Development using JBuilder" (but read this one first).

To sum up, this book deserves its popularity as a great Java text in its own right. It will be useful to all those who are serious about learning Java programming, whether they intend to use JBuilder or not.