Customer Reviews

COBOL Programmers Swing with Java

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Why does every Java book start with Hello World? This one doesn't. They use a bank system to illustrate the java commands. And it does it in less than 300 pages. Which means it actually is possible to read it from beginning to end. Plus it is easy to follow. It may not have all the things you can do in java but I found it to be of great help as I learn java. For cobol programmers I feel this is one to have in your library.

At 282 pages, this books covers a lot of ground about Java and Object Oriented Programming. There are 11 Chapters covering everything from Object Oriented Programming fundamentals to somewhat advanced subject matter like Object Oriented Development Issues. A Community National Bank Application is used to demonstrate OO Concepts such as Encapsulation, Inheritance,Polymorphism, Java classes structure, variables declaration, Java operators, decision making constructs such as: the while loop and for loop. There are also Chapters that cover topics like Arrays, file I/O, Database access and Java GUI. There are a lot of code samples followed by explanation of what the code is doing. Be carefully though, I found several errors in this book. For example, Chapter 4, StringDemo.java example, the code on line 9 System.out.println(s2.substring(10, 13) + "FUN!"); will print Jav is FUN!. To print Java is FUN!, change the substring method parameters to 10,14, i.e., System.out.println(s2.substring(10, 14) + "FUN!");
There are also some GUI code samples that use show() method, which has been deprecated. To be fair, the number of code sample errors in this book is low and I'm not really complaining about them. I think sometimes a code sample error is a good thing because it makes you research the problem. The code samples are also available at the publisher's web site on Internet. This book also attempts to take COBOL syntax and identify compatible/similar Java syntax or concepts. I think that will be appreciated by most COBOL Programmers. This book seems to be geared towards Java 4 SE Edition, i.e., Java v1.4. Notice that the Web Based Application development is not covered by this book. The authors also assume that the reader knows about some Java IDE, such as Eclipse, or NetBeans. Bottom line, this is easy to read and to follow book that covers a lot of topics in OOP and Java. It will not make you the greatest Java Developer ever, however, it will teach you something about OO programming and how to code simple Java Apps. I would recommend this book to any COBOL Programmer who wants to learn some Java.