Absolute Java with Student Resource Disk (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Walter Savitch (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321330242 | ISBN-13: 978-0321330246 | Publication Date: April 18, 2005 | Edition: 2

With the second edition of Absolute Java, best-selling author Walt Savitch offers a comprehensive introduction of the java programming language.  This book gives programmers the tools to master the Java language.  He takes full advantage of the new Java 5.0 features and incorporates the new Scanner class. There is comprehensive coverage of generic types, including how to define classes with type parameters, collection classes done as generic classes, and linked lists done with type parameters.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

 

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Walter Savitch is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of California at San Diego. He received his PhD in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969. Since that time he has been on the faculty of the University of California in San Diego (UCSD). He served as director of the UCSD Interdisciplinary PhD program in Cognitive Science for over ten years. He has served as a visiting researcher at the Computer Science departments of the University of Washington in Seattle and and at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and has been a visiting scholar at the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica in Amsterdam.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1248 pages
• Publisher: Addison Wesley; 2 edition (April 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321330242
• ISBN-13: 978-0321330246
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,203,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent for a beginner, July 26, 2005

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Absolute Java with Student Resource Disk (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

The book excels at teaching a reader new to either Java or any programming language. Savitch goes comprehensively through the core classes that come with the standard Java distribution. Also, he uses Java 5, which is the latest major release of Java. If you are going to start learning Java, you might as well start here, instead of using a text that deals with earlier versions.

It turns out that Java 5 also gives notational simplifications, which may help the new programmer. For example, suppose we have "int i" and "Integer x". In earlier versions of Java, you would have had to write "i=x.intValue()" to assign from x to i, or "x=new Integer(i)" to assign from i to x. Experienced Java programmers will shrug and say, "so what?". But they don't need this book anyway. For a beginner, some of the earlier Java notation or formalism can be bulky. But now in Java 5, you can just say "i=x" or "x=i" and the JVM makes the appropriate conversions internally. So long as you understand this, the new notation is better. It makes the code more concise and readable. Which even for experienced programmers should be desirable. Easier to understand and debug.

It should be said that Savitch goes much further into other aspects and improvements in Java 5. Without gainsaying his efforts, I think the above is the most understandable thing to appreciate about Java 5.

Another positive aspect of the book is the plethora of worked out examples and problems in each chapter. For the latter, answers are also furnished at the ends of the chapters. But if you want the most out of this book, retain enough self discipline to devote serious effort to the problems before checking the answers.

Savitch also brings up the topic of patterns. It reflects a roughly 10 year old realisation in computing about the importance of this to robust and rapid coding. And it also aids in the efficient communication of solutions between programmers. Seeing it migrate to a beginner's book like this is a good sign. If you can learn just the overall concept of a pattern, as well as several specific and important patterns given in the text, then you get off to a good start in programming. In any language.

Sure, when you don't even know the syntax of Java, patterns can seem a little abstract. Just like interfaces. But when you get around to writing thousands of lines of source code, or having to maintain or extend such code bodies, then patterns and interfaces really show their utility.

Note in passing that the book is not really an algorithms text. The most involved it gets in this aspect is a brief discusssion of sorting methods. If you're after algorithms implemented in Java, try elsewhere.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST OF THE BEST, November 21, 2008

By 

LauraM (PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Absolute Java (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

It is BY FAR the best book on programming that I have read. I tried Java for Dummies, learning online, also the Java tutorials from Sun and they were a waste of time or money or both.

There are several reasons that make me love this book and the way this author teaches:

1. I read most of this book in seven weeks. After that, I took a second course on programming and I did great on my class.

2. The exercises are well designed to learn. Some are challenging but all go right to the core of what you learned on each chapter.

3. It covers the basics and even some advanced topics that I have encountered in following programming courses.

4. The explanations are crystal clear. It is hard to be left with doubts.

5. The organization is perfect. It builds a core and then it adds more to the core. After five chapters you can move on many different directions depending on your needs and the book will still make sense.

6. The code is transparent and clarifications on the margins do help.

7. It is up to date with the latest Java release.

In all honesty this book does not have a weak spot. BUY IT!!!

hernanM

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! A non-baby intro book, April 6, 2007

By 

M. Weeks - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Absolute Java with Student Resource Disk (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

I've tried three other Java intro books, and they either aren't well-organized or they take such a dim view of the reader's abilities that it's like reading Programming for Pre-schoolers. Absolute Java is well-structured with both breadth & depth: it doesn't ignore programming basics, but covers a much larger scope of material than other books I've tried, while still including detail about intricacies of more sophisticated aspects of the language. Uses lots of good, robust examples. Love it.