Customer Reviews

Beginning Java 2

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ivor Horton has once again produced an exceptional beginner's book for Java. I have reviewed many beginner books on Java in the search for a textbook for an "Introduction to Java" class that I teach at Hofstra University. Few of these books have met the goal of providing a solid base of knowledge upon which a programmer can build. Ivor Horton's "Beginning Java" is one of those few. This book is an excellent introduction to Java for anyone who has a basic understanding of programming and is willing to apply some effort to learn the language. Horton proceeds at a rapid pace to cover virtually every important topic in Java outside of the Enterprise Edition. Starting with the basics of the Java language Horton explains the Java syntax in great detail. He then goes on to cover exceptions, streams, utility classes, threads, GUI (with a concentration on Swing), and file processing. In addition, Horton covers all the important new features of the 1.4 release including more than 100 pages on XML. Each chapter builds upon the previous chapter using extensive, well designed and clearly explained examples. Although the book covers a wide range of topics, it does not treat any of them lightly. Many introductory books fall short in the very important topic of object oriented technique. Horton does an excellent job of both explaining OO and then using it in his many examples. Unlike other books that you may read and discard, this is a book that will continue to provide help far into your Java career.

Warning to all you Java beginners: Don't expect to read this book and immediately graduate to an "intermediate" Java programmer - ESPECIALLY if you're new to programming and/or object-oriented programming.

This book gives you a fairly good introduction to the basics of Java; Ivor Horton is a bit "dry" but does the job. If you don't have experience with object oriented design (like C++), you'll NEED to also purchase, "Beginning Java Objects" by Jacquie Barker. And when I say "NEED", I mean NEED!! Jacquie's book is absolutely ESSENTIAL for any person new to objects.

It is impossible to fit all the beginning Java topics into one book (even if it is 1200+ pages) and Ivor doesn't try too. He goes over threading and Swing but you'll need to seperate books for these topics.

Another warning for Java newbies: Beginning Java topics can be quite boring, I'm sure many will want to jump straight to the cool stuff like Swing, JSP/Servlets, J2ME...but you MUST understand objects, java terminology, and other basic principles FIRST. You may want to check out books like "Java Cookbook", "Design Patterns Java Workbook", "Design Patterns Explained", "Objected Oriented Thought Process" and especially "Beginning Java Objects" to complement Ivor's book.

I gave this book 4 stars because "beginning" books should take you by the hand and babystep you through the process (in my opinion), this book doesn't quite do this (Jacquie's book does). You may feel more comfortable with one of these "dummies" or "teach yourself in 21 days" or "Java Bible" instead (though I haven't read any of these). But stay away from the "Core series" or "O'Reilly" books if you don't want something too hard.

To learn Java you're gonna need to drop some $$ on a bunch of books and you'll need to spend some SERIOUS time practicing, but as Ivor Horton says, "Nothing worthwile is achieved without effort. You'll need to put in the work and have the ambition to succeed when the going gets tough."

as a cs majored student i have read quite a few java tutorial, this one is the best i've found. the author assumes no previous programming experiens, everything step by step; he not only teaches what java is and HOW TO USE IT, but also teaches you good programming style from very beginning. It shows a great consideration to the simplicity as well as performance of your java codes, and explains why you should do this way in a scientific yet very clear and easy to understand manner. i simply love the author's writing style. the book is well structured, mastering an OOP language such as java is never really a piece of cake for most people, but this book does its best to minimize your pain all along the road. you can be sure you are getting knowledge, confidence, skill and fun with this book. and, all the examples given in the book are just complete applications or applets. they are just ready for you to try them out.

Our professor put deitel and deitel's " java: how to program " in his literature list, but after using it for a while, i no longer thought it a good idea for a beginner. the examples given in this book seem not to reveal how to program and what is oop but rather to conceal them, besides, it's really not a fancy idea to begin with swing . but in this Ivor's book, he starts with plain console application, so you can concentrate on what you should concentrate as a beginner. then i also tried " thinking in java", i have to admit it is a nice book, but too conceptual, and most codes in this book are not complete, you might have to bother to add some code if you want to try them out. if you were still not familiar with I/O control, it could be a problem for you. and, the knowledge such as memory allocation...etc are not merged in the java teaching as well as Ivor's book. there are also other java books i have read, but i cannot even recall them. and seems i dont need more with this Ivor's great work on java learning. of course one would need other tutorial when go further into some specific field, however, i venture to say this is the best book for a greenhorn so far.

I started reading several Java beginner's guide type books but this one is the best. The depth and breadth Mr. Horton has crafted into his book allowed me to grasp, with admittedly some effort, Java object oriented programming concepts.

This book presents a clear path, by using both words and good sample programming techniques, to learn how to be a productive Java programmer.

To have a solid grasp of the tools Java makes available to the programmer, I recommend reading this book first then read a more concise book "A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification" by Mughal and Rasmussen.

I am teaching a co-worker's daughter to program in Java and this book is exactly what we needed. She was programming-phobic and Ivor's teaching style calmed her down by explaining things very well.

At 1162 pages, it is a big book. That might tend to frighten some beginners, until they realize that the reason why it is so big is because things are explained very well. If there is anything overlooked, we haven't found it yet.

For more experienced Java folks, there are the later chapters. He covers things like Java and XML. I learned a few things by just browsing around in the book.

The primary, target audience is the beginner. I think they would be very happy that they bought this book.

I've completed about half the book so far and I am still going strong. That's the good thing about this book. I've tried reading a few other Java titles like Orielly's Learning Java or Just Java 2. Although they are good quality books, Hortons title is more appropriate for a novice beginner. The book does seem to concentrate for the most part on the client side, so you'll need to look at some Orielly titles like Java Server Pages and Java Servlet Programming after reading Hortons book for server side Java programming.

The fact is that the Java framework contains many classes of specializations, and the client side GUI libraries like Swing or Awt can take a book in and of themselves. Horton takes time explaining the Java language definition and important areas such as file I/O and exception handling. I think that too many authors presuppose a readers background in Standard C++. Even though Java syntax is similar to Standard C/C++ syntax, the heavy use and design reuse of the framework libraries in Java is all new to systems developers with a prior experience with lightweight libraries. So this is the right book to start off your middleware Java2 solutions adventure primarily due to the beginner pace and handling of concepts.

In all the years I have been programming and teaching people about computers, I have never come across a book like Ivor Horton's "Beginning Java". If you have a commitment and have the ambitions to succeed this book is for you. Whether you are into creating graphic rich and interactive web pages or creating full featured window applications then you'll love this book. With this book you can learn Java plus the techniques you need for success with your own projects. With Ivor's powerful words and overwhelming examples you can learn Java 2 in no time at all. This book may seem daunting at first, but once you get into it you'll be amazed at how fast you'll get done. With over a thousand pages of raw, hard core java, good ol' Ivor gets the job done and will make it seem like a breeze. There is no need to continue your search for "the right book" because the search stops here. And if you really want to "go to town" then you can also get five other of his enlightening books. They are "Beginning Java Networking", "Beginning JSP Web Development", "Beginning Java Databases", "Professional Java Programming", "Professional Java Server Programming J2ee Ed". Buy all of these and you will be able to enhance your knowledge and advance your career in no time. The price may be large but the knowledge you will receive is beyond wealth. There is no way you can go wrong with this book so give it a shot and see what happens. You never know, maybe you'll be the next Ivor Horton.

As far as introductory books on programming languages go, I would have to say this book is at the top of my list. It is a good book for people who are new to programming, but packs enough meat at 1100+ pages for people like me who have programmed in other languages and are looking to pick up Java. Horton does a wonderful job explaining basic principles of object oriented design and the right way to document code. This does was it is meant to do, if you have used previous versions of Java, I would recommend picking up Oreilly's Java 1.4 in a Nutshell.

I completely concur with other reviewers assessment that this book is for folks who are new to programming. For the novice, this book goes into a lot of detail and does a lot of carefull, and (helpfully) repetitious, description. I would definitely recommend this book for the novice.

But if you know another language already (especially an object oriented one), you'll go nuts wading through the detail and repetition. Having made this realization, I switched to Bruce Eckel's _Thinking In Java_ (3rd ed.) and am delighted with it. You can easily execute his sample code along with your reading and modify as needed to experiement. His explanations of the language are to the point and clear for people who are already familiar with OO programming. If you are not familiar with OO, it's still good because he does go over the concepts. His approach gets you into Java really quickly and and at a meaningful level of detail.

This book is wonderful. It cover all the thing about Java for a beginner programmer. I warn you this is a beginner book, not suitable for the professionals. But you are a starter for java this is the book for you. Moreover, if you a starter for programming you have to buy this... It has many good examples but for beginners :))

all in all, if you a starter, you buy it...trust me!!