Customer Reviews

Beginning Java 2

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

There is a lot to like about "Beginning Java 2." It provides excruciatingly detailed coverage of Java, written in a clear, intelligent way. The author does an effective job of tempering the extensively technical content with a friendly writing style that is never flip or insulting to the reader.

I also appreciate the abundance of examples, illustrations, and diagrams, which support the text well and are easy to read. Pertinent code samples are shaded in gray, which enhances readability. Diagrams are clear and and are supported with well-written callouts.

Although the book's title is "Beginning Java 2," it could be daunting to readers with little or no programming background, especially as they progress beyond the first two chapters. Chapter 1 provides an excellent introduction to Java and object-oriented programming concepts. The first part of Chapter 2 provides a good introduction to variables and data types. About the middle of Chapter 2, however, when the author begins discussing additional mathematical concepts, the reader is led into deeper waters and at this point, "absolute" beginners may start to feel overwhelmed. This doesn't mean that they should abandon the book, but they may need to take additional time to absorb the concepts.

Each chapter concludes with a summary of its content and several practice exercises. Although such practice is certainly valuable, I would have liked to see an additional appendix with "answers" to the exercises so that readers could check their work and benefit from the author's expertise. Without such author feedback, the exercises are less effective as learning tools.

Overall, I see "Beginning Java 2" as a potentially valuable addition to the bookshelf of any programmer new to Java. I recommend it with some caution to "absolute" beginners -- although with patience, determination, and a commitment to learn, they, too, may find the book very beneficial.

This book is a pretty good introduction to Java, especially for beginners. However I would like to point out certain drawbacks of the book:

1)As the previous reviewer pointed out, Horton uses too much of math to illustrate his examples. He'd be better off tackling real-world problems.

2)Lot of coverage is given to Input/output streams, filing, printing etc. Infact these topics span 3 chapters in the book which is a bit excessive.

3) There is absolutely NO mention of network programming. A chapter on network programming would be greatly appreciated instead of the excessive coverage of streams.

4)However there is excellent coverage and explanation of JDBC. Also threads are explained very well.

Overall the book is definitely worth a buy, especially for the beginner/intermediate programmer. Object-oriented concepts are very well-explained. Also it has much better coverage of Swing than books like Thinking in Java. It is definitely better than Just Java which I found to be too superficial and elementary.

I feel like i have been in a race for the last 9 months trying to learn Java, and go beyond and be productive. Some guy said he learned Java in 2 weeks, its not going to happen. Then again there are different levels of what people mean by, "know a language." I have so many java books in my room people who come by think java is some sort of porn. First off most the books out there take people from a C or Java haha, background and let them learn a few new sentax moves in java. Problem is they do not tell you the full story. You will be there reading over 20 pages of stuff in these other books and not have a clue what was just going on. You will have a fuzzy look on your face, with a side note in your mind going,,yeah ill come back to that. All these java books are the same, they give you the basics the first 3/4 and then the last 1/4 they tell you how to make a art program,,etc with basic class files etc. This book is complete, you will understand what is going on, its worth it being a bit longer. In fact the 1/2 this book is on basics and 1/2 is on the extra stuff. And remember the only way to really know "JAVA" is to program. Just don't read the 1000 pages, you will get no where, because you will forget it fast. From day one you should think of something app you would like to create, and your desire to learn what is going on will be much better. The only thing i question is Ivor Horton, the guy has to take drugs to write a 1000+ page book like this. There has to be a better way of making money.

I resisted buying this book despite the good reviews because I couldn't stand the thought of looking at Ivor's mug shot for two months while I went through the book. However, eventually I caved and the purchase was worth it. Ivor is pedantic and thorough so you get an excellent grounding in object-oriented programming languages as well as learning Java.

I also purchased Peter van der Linden's Just Java 2 which is also good. If you already have C or C++ programming experience, you can probably get away with Just Java 2 but if you are a relative newbie like myself whose only prior programming experience was in HTML and Pascal, you are better off with Horton.

I'm probably being a bit premature in writing this review, but I must say I think this book is great. I have no C or C++ background yet am able to follow this book. I'm only into the 5th chapter but am amazed it how good this book is. I took a whole online course on ZDU (smart planet) in Java and the course was just HORRIBLE. I've learned more in the first few chapters of this book than that whole course was supposed to teach me. For once I'm reading a book on Java that does not have me completely lost.

I bought this book while attending to regular Java classes to complement my non-C programmer background.

I soon realized that this is a textbook for a Java 2 introductory course. Its chained chapters must be read in sequence and thoroughly for full appreciation.

Used in this way, it is wonderful. Ivor Horton is a great professor, does not leave anything behind and found in his organized and practical book the best order to provide one's first contact with the intricacies of Java. I also liked to see that examples runned as expected.

Keep in mind that this book is not a reference work. It is not designed for your expedite picking of information bits needed when you are writing your own programs.

The book teaches basic Java 2 - absolutely complete about the basics - but does not even mention more advanced features like networking or beans. You will need another book for that. True, the title "Beginning" and the introduction should hint us about this, but it is far from intuitive given the massive 1100+ pages of the book. Believe, the heavy size is due to Java's complexity and not to author's verbosity.

If you are new to Java you will pick up the concepts very well with this book. The problem is, as the chapters move along, they start to build on the previous chapters. It gets to the point where there isn't a single example that doesn't build on a previous example.

As a consultant, I really don't have time to read (and digest) five chapters worth of stuff I don't want to do just so that I can understand the example. For example, I'm currently in the process of writing a applet that needs functionality to handle the mouse. The problem is the example shown is dependant on code from a couple of CHAPTERS back! He'll usually say "you can add functionality to the drawing program by..." and he'll add the example that I was looking at. Then he'll say, "and everything else remains the same". He uses variables and methods that I've never seen before (like the "contained" method). So I go back to the last set of code, which basically says the same thing (go back again). Basically, his project started many chapters back.

Having a project in the book is good. It shows you how all of the language functionality can be combined into a real world project. So if you read the book from cover to cover, great. However, if you just need one concept to get a project done (especially with the advanced topics) you will run into problems. He should have code snippets that work independently of the "real-world" project. That would definitely push the book to five stars.

The title is abit misleading. I my self program in MARKIV and COBOL, and found this book very useful in helping me to learn JAVA programming. My friend on the other hand wanted to learn JAVA, with no programming knowledge and found it to be extremely useless. If you have no programming knowledge I suggest another book. My only beef is that he goes into too much detail on little things like variables. On the other hand great to learn concepts like OOP when coming from a structural programming backround. Also if your only desire is to lean applets this book may not be for you, the book builds from the bottom up and teaches the foundation of the language before getting into the more advanced stuff.

1.The whole book presents information in a linear, bore-you-to-death, window-help-file style. No section summarys, no warning and tips, no JAVA programming insights.

2. The exception handling chapter is confusing, the input-output chapters are unreadable. Window GUI programing (which by its nature should be interesting) in this book can make you start wondering why you want to learn JAVA.

3. The book's size can be cut down 30% if it's not as WORDY as it is now.

4. After reading so many "wonderful" reviews at Amazon, I bought this book last year. But after a whole painful month, I gave up and switched to other books.

This is my second book on Java and now I realize that it should have been the first. The author does a great job of introducing all the aspects of OOP and implementaing OOP in Java. Beginners should pay special attention to Chapter 6 ('Extending Classes and Inheritance'). Don't skim thru it 'cause if you do, you might not be able to understand rest of the book. Another great thing about the book is the support which Wrox is extending. There is a Q&A seminar link on the Wrox site of this book on which you can post questions regarding the book. I have posted a few questions myself and the author, Ivor Horton, responded within 24 hours.

Ivor and Wrox, thanks to you both for such a splendid job.

Rafi <raamer@hotmail.com>