Java Outside In

Rating:
Summary: Great source for learning Java as a beginner or an advancer
Review: I am a junior majoring in Computer Science and Math and still find Java Outside as a great source to learn and review Java knowlege.

For beginners, do not let the first chapter scare you since it has some more complicated programs. Instead, you should get excited and see what Java can do in day-to-day life, and what you can do with Java. I got rather excited because those are real examples rather than those that are vague and discrete.

Starting Chapter 2, the authors speak in details for some of the most basic Java elements. The excercise were also helpful as a review source after reading each chapter.

Prof. Ethan also emphasized on learning strategies which you wouldn't find anywhere else. To learn Java, you should always keep a journal of what you learned, what you are confused about, and what you did in order to understand it. I have implement this method to many other subjects.

The authors really put their hearts into writing this book. I can sense how much they love this subject and how hard they try to make sure the readers understand and love what they are learning.

Rating:
Summary: Bottom Line - DON'T PURCHASE THIS BOOK
Review: I have been to Bolker's class at UMASS Boston and experienced the worst presentation of Java I have ever seen. The exact wording was, "You will learn a lot of Java in very little time." A promise never kept. You spend 20 hours a week not knowing what to do with HIS code for many reasons that I do not care to detail here. You never write code of your own making. You spend 5 of those hours writing a diary which isn't Java. The book itself is NOT an adequate reference for this language. In my opinion the man is due to retire. What I wanted to say is DON'T PURCHASE THIS BOOK to learn Java. Most if not all of the book is a presentation of a few small programs written in Java designed for classroom lectures. It is not a presentation of the Java Programming Language.

Rating:
Summary: Bottom Line - DON'T PURCHASE THIS BOOK
Review: I have been to Bolker's class at UMASS Boston and experienced the worst presentation of Java I have ever seen. The exact wording was, "You will learn a lot of Java in very little time." A promise never kept. You spend 20 hours a week not knowing what to do with HIS code for many reasons that I do not care to detail here. You never write code of your own making. You spend 5 of those hours writing a diary which isn't Java. The book itself is NOT an adequate reference for this language. In my opinion the man is due to retire. What I wanted to say is DON'T PURCHASE THIS BOOK to learn Java. Most if not all of the book is a presentation of a few small programs written in Java designed for classroom lectures. It is not a presentation of the Java Programming Language.

Rating:
Summary: Exellent Java Book
Review: The authors of this book take a very different approach to the teaching of Java. Where other introductory books are large, the book that I use in my class is over 1200 pages, this one has only 318 pages. With brevity the key, only the very basics can be covered. Since Java is such a large language, the question then becomes defining what is basic. Only 24 pages are devoted to describing graphical user interfaces, and they are in the last chapter. Given that there are so many different GUI components, that they have so many properties and they can be used in so many ways, so little is covered in that chapter that it is really too little and too late.
The authors choose to start with a description of objects rather than cover the basic data types and fundamental control constructs. They are partially covered in the second chapter, properly called, "First Things Second." In chapter three, they go back to classes and objects, and more of the fundamental control constructs are explained. Collections are the focus of chapter four, starting with arrays and then moving on to the Arraylist and TreeMap data structures. Inheritance, exceptions, Strings and files are the topics of the remaining chapters. A large number of exercises are at the end of each chapter, most of which involve modifications of the code presented in the chapter.
I would not use this book in an introductory Java class. The small amount of coverage of GUI objects is not enough to make it worthwhile. It would have been better to have just left it out. Only two pages are devoted to event handling, such a brief mention is also of dubious value. With only 256 pages devoted to explanation, I consider the breadth of coverage insufficient. For example, I could not find a table summarizing the fundamental data type and their limits. This is a critical omission, the short and byte data types are not mentioned until the glossary. Students coming to Java from C or C++ will be confused by this lack of information. Much of the other library functionality in the java.lang package such as the Math object is also never mentioned.

Rating:
Summary: Exellent Java Book
Review: This is another great book to learn java. It has lots of real world examples and has a nice approach right from the begining. It is a little hard at the begining but I suppose thats how any new language would seem to a beginer. I propose for the second edition instead of that big Bank program, at the begining, there might be a test that evaluates wether you have the talent to be a programer or not.

Rating:
Summary: Garbage in, garbage out
Review: Total garbage. The worst book I have ever encountered. I am taking (and dropping) a course called 'Introduction to Java Programming'. This POS was inflicted on the class. Our assignmnents are all from the book, so we not only have to try to figure Java out from the minimal explanations in the book, we also have to read Bolker's crappy code. This book just cost me $700. I'm dropping, yet I'd probably get an A if I continued on for 6 more weeks. I just can't take one more page of this miserable excuse for a textbook.

Bolker, and his lacky Campbell (who, on his website, states that he can't see why anyone would use languages like C++ when there's SmallTalk. This guy's teaching?), start off with this big program, and, as another reviewer stated, tell you not to worry about the details. Huh? However, I disagree with that reviewer. I think it does go downhill from there.

The reviewer from Boston who gives a glowing review and five stars: Oh, puhleassse, Ethan, reviewing your own book? No one using this book for a primary text, or a reference for that matter, would give it more than one star (if only there were no stars). This is by far the worst text book I've ever encountered.

This is Bolker's exercise in pedagogic experimentation and theory. Bolker's theory (he states this) is that the two best ways to learn to program are by:

1) Having a big program full of things that students have never seen thrown at them and they will somehow be able to read the program and all of a sudden go "Aha, I understand Java now).

2) Reading well written code. (A little arrogant, aren't we, Bolker?) Bolker's idea is that you just read his code for hours and you'll become a great programmer. Sorry, fool, the best way to learn to code is to code.

Oh, I forgot his journal concept. Those of us who've had the extreme misfortune to be taught using the Bolker method (I'm NOT taking the course at UMass Boston, BTW) also are required to keep a journal. We spend a couple of hours a week writing about our experiences using Bolker's executable programs: "I input a negative when asked for a positive and this is what happened:" Asinine.

This book is equally horrible as an Intro to Java textbook, a teach yourself book, and as a reference book. It doesn't give enough explanation nor examples to be a good textbook, it would be impossible to teach oneself Java from it, and there is just not enough coverage and too much babble to be useful as a reference. Totally useless crap.

Again, Bolker has this (incorrect) pedagogic theory and this book is the result. Theory is where it should have remained.