Eclipse for Dummies

Rating:
Summary: Good treatment of Eclipse with a minor caveat...
Review: Another one of the newer books out on Eclipse is Eclipse For Dummies by Barry Burd (Wiley). I like the book for what it is, but there are some caveats that may affect your experience...

Chapter List:
Part 1 - The Eclipse Landscape: Reader, Meet Eclipse, Eclipse, Meet The Reader; Installing Eclipse; Using the Eclipse Workbench; Changing Your Perspective; Some Useful Perspectives and Views
Part 2 - Using the Eclipse Environment: Using the Java Editor; Getting Eclipse to Write Your Code; Straight from the Source's Mouse; More Eclipse "Sourcery"; Refactoring: A Burd's Eye View; Refactor This!; Looking for Things in All the Right Places
Part 3 - Doing More With Eclipse: Working with Projects; Running Code; Getting Help; Squashing Bugs
Part 4 - The Part of Tens: The Frequently Asked Questions (And Their Answers); Ten Great Plug-ins for Eclipse
Index

First off, what I liked... I'm unapologetic in my liking of Dummies titles. They mesh well with my learning style (light and humorous), and I think they do a great job in giving one a good understanding of a particular subject. If you had never read anything about Eclipse, this book would be a good way to expose you to the functionality of the software. I also like how Burd covers the features of the software, like refactoring and such. Once again, when you get done with the book, you should understand how the software can help you when you're coding your programs. Finally, it's been published since Eclipse 3 was released, so it's dealing with the latest and greatest.

So what are the caveats? The book deals mostly with the Eclipse as an IDE, but not so much with actual coding with it. There are other books out there that largely cover the same material as this book does, but they have more of an emphasis on actual coding examples. Having the practical coding examples can help cement some of the learning you'll need going forward.

It's not that this book is bad or that it's done a bad job. It's just that depending on what you're looking for, this may or may not be your best choice...