Beginning J2ME: From Novice to Professional [Paperback]

Sing Li (Author), Jonathan Knudsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2005 | ISBN-10: 1590594797 | ISBN-13: 978-1590594797 | Edition: 3rd

J2ME is a platform for wireless and mobile Java application development. Beginning J2ME makes this and all the fun you can have with it accessible to the first time wireless Java developer as well as useful to the experienced. This book includes coverage such as sound HTTPS support, lots of user interface API enhancements, a Game API, sound/music API, 3D graphics, Bluetooth, and much more. It’s easy to read with lots of practical hands-on and able to use code examples.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jonathan Knudsen is a Java developer and noted author of several books, including Wireless Java: Developing with Java 2, Micro Edition (from Apress), Mobile Java, The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots, Learning Java, and Java 2D Graphics. Jonathan began his object-oriented programming career in Objective-C on the NeXT OS, soon thereafter suffering through a couple purgatorial years in Microsoft's Visual C++ before graduating to Java in 1996. He has written extensively about Java and Lego robots, including five books, a monthly online column called "Bite-Size Java", and articles for JavaWorld, EXE, NZZ Folio, and the O'Reilly Network. Jonathan holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Princeton University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 3rd edition (April 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590594797
• ISBN-13: 978-1590594797
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #748,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hacking through the jungle, March 6, 2006

By 

Ernest Friedman-Hill "JavaRanch Sheriff" (Gaithersburg, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning J2ME: From Novice to Professional (Paperback)

J2ME is a jungle of configurations, profiles, and APIs. A beginner's book might soar over the jungle like an exotic bird, pretty but insubstantial. Such a book would see everything from a 20,000 foot view. You'd see the lay of the land, but wouldn't get your feet wet.

Another approach would be for the authors to grab their machetes and start hacking their way in, following a particular path. You'd get all dirty and sweaty and get a lot of experience, but not necessarily understand exactly how you got there.

This book decidedly takes this latter path. After a brief introductory chapter, it concentrates on the core APIs and the most commonly implemented configuration and device profile. Although there's plenty of practical information on tools and lots of code examples, as a reader unfamiliar with J2ME, and someone who doesn't own a Java-enabled phone, I felt disoriented. As an introduction to J2ME programming, I felt the book was lacking in background and motivations.

Striking a balance between the two approaches I described might be a fool's errand. Therefore you would probably need one book from each category to really get involved in J2ME development.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Delivers what it promises, November 23, 2005

By 

Jay Bromley (Pasadena, California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beginning J2ME: From Novice to Professional (Paperback)

The title says it all. For someone who has never done J2ME before, this is a great book. It takes you from knowing nothing about j2ME to being able to create a reasonably non-trivial J2ME midlet in short, very readable chapters. It did a good job introducing profiles and configurations and whatnot (Sun's J2ME page always seemed like too much to sort out for a J2ME beginner) and then jumps right into what you need to know for coding. It even does some introductory work on game programming, though realistically you will need a more advanced J2ME game book if this is your intended use of J2ME.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An Honest Effort, but Little Value, September 17, 2007

By 

TheNextGuy "TheNextGuy" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning J2ME: From Novice to Professional (Paperback)

I have always been under the impression that when buying a book of technical nature, one is supposed to purchase a piece of an author's hard-earned, over-the-years experience, otherwise it's just paying for a documentation reprint. Such an experience can be conveyed to a reader in at least two major ways: (1.) a very well-organized, thought-through and consistent presentation of fundamental - yet often complex - concepts (e.g., "Head First Java" by Sierra), or (2.) an in-depth, unique perspective on advanced topics not to be found anywhere else (e.g., "Effective Java" by Bloch). Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, this book delivers neither. As an example of the lack of the former: the discussion of J2ME Configurations and Profiles is almost as muddy and inconsequential as the specification site itself. As an example of the lack of the later: the entire Performance Tuning chapter, a subject I would expect to be critical for success with a mobile platform is about 10 pages, entire page -sized screenshots included. Topics such as real-world compatibility of J2ME across different vendors' implementations is almost not mentioned at all. So, what's left? Basically, a few hundred pages of short, introductory chapters on J2ME APIs, reading pretty much just like Sun Developer Network Reference technical articles or implementation-oriented CodeProject pages. Don't get me wrong, the book authors' hard effort is clearly visible, but you can as well google for "J2ME Record Store tutorial", a "J2ME Bluetooth API tutorial" and so on.