Customer Reviews

Core Java 2, Volume II: Advanced Features (5th Edition)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In my review of Professional Java JDK 6 Edition, I said I didn't think one book could cover such a wide variety of topics and expect to do a good job overall. This volume is, I think, an exception that proves the rule.

It is indeed a monster book, easily several months of steady work to get through, and an useful reference afterwards as well. It is well put together, clearly written, methodically presented. I wouldn't put it down if that were possible. The coverage is broad and the examples are interesting. The topics also feel complete, not because they are thorough, but because they leave off right where intermediate-level programmers could work out most details on their own.

I read the first and second editions years ago, and I must say this title has become a case study in steady, disciplined, tireless improvement and refinement of the original. It's 990 pages, but I haven't come across a useless sentence yet. The authors haven't just added on. They've refined their examples, improved and replaced others. Most importantly, they've realized a format that puts boilerplate and API tables to the side, allowing the reader to focus on the concept at hand. Complete code listings are in the text, presented in a way that makes it easy to gloss them in favor of the soft copy available by download.

If you need lots and lots of code work on different topics to burn Java into your fingertips -- and there really is no other way to do it -- this book is an excellent choice.

This book does not substitute for all of the specialized books on the subjects that it covers, and it is by no means encyclopedic in scope. However, even in its 7th edition it is still the best and the clearest overview of advanced features of the language for Java 1.5. What is particularly nice is that the author has split his Core Java series up such that if your goal is just to learn the language you need only buy volume one, and if your goal is to get a handle on the changes in the advanced features of the language you need only buy volume 2. They are pretty much independent of one another. Add to that the fact that both of these volumes can be found used for about $20 each, and it is definitely worth the purchase. The writing style is very clear with much sample code. The author even gives a little bit of background showing how each feature of the language has changed over the years. I notice that Amazon only shows the table of contents for the previous edition, so I show the table of contents for the current edition next:
1. MULTITHREADING
What Are Threads?; Interrupting Threads; Thread States; Thread Properties; Synchronization; Blocking Queues; Thread-Safe Collections; Callables and Futures; Executors; Synchronizers; Threads and Swing;

2. COLLECTIONS
Collection Interfaces; Concrete Collections; The Collections Framework; Algorithms; Legacy Collections;

3. NETWORKING
Connecting to a Server; Implementing Servers; Sending E-Mail; Making URL Connections; Advanced Socket Programming;

4. DATABASE PROGRAMMING
The Design of JDBC; The Structured Query Language; JDBC Installation; Basic JDBC Programming Concepts; Query Execution; Scrollable and Updatable Result Sets; Metadata; Row Sets; Transactions; Advanced Connection Management; Introduction to LDAP;

5. DISTRIBUTED OBJECTS
The Roles of Client and Server; Remote Method Invocations; Setup for Remote Method Invocation; Parameter Passing in Remote Methods; Server Object Activation; Java IDL and CORBA; Remote Method Calls with SOAP;

6. ADVANCED SWING
Lists; Trees; Tables; Styled Text Components; Progress Indicators; Component Organizers;

7. ADVANCED AWT
The Rendering Pipeline; Shapes; Areas; Strokes; Paint; Coordinate Transformations; Clipping; Transparency and Composition; Rendering Hints; Readers and Writers for Images; Image Manipulation; Printing; The Clipboard; Drag and Drop;

8. JAVABEANS COMPONENTS
Why Beans?; The Bean-Writing Process; Using Beans to Build an Application; Naming Patterns for Bean Properties and Events; Bean Property Types; BeanInfo Classes; Property Editors; Customizers; JavaBeans Persistence;

9. SECURITY
Class Loaders; Bytecode Verification; Security Managers and Permissions; Digital Signatures; Code Signing; Encryption;

10. INTERNATIONALIZATION
Locales; Number Formats; Date and Time; Collation; Message Formatting; Text Files and Character Sets; Resource Bundles; A Complete Example;

11. NATIVE METHODS
Calling a C Function from the Java Programming Language; Numeric Parameters and Return Values; String Parameters; Accessing Fields; Encoding Signatures; Calling Java Methods; Accessing Array Elements; Handling Errors; Using the Invocation API; A Complete Example: Accessing the Windows Registry;

12. XML
Introducing XML; Parsing an XML Document; Validating XML Documents; Locating Information with XPath; Using Namespaces; Using the SAX Parser; Generating XML Documents; XSL Transformations;

13. ANNOTATIONS
Addition of Metadata to Programs; An Example: Annotating Event Handlers; Annotation Syntax; Standard Annotations; The Apt Tool for Source-Level Annotation Processing; Bytecode Engineering;

This is a nice set of walkthroughs on the basic APIs that are just outside of the core Java language presented in the first book. These include threading, Swing, AWT, JDBC, Networking, JavaBeans and JNI. Some of the coverage is more in-depth than in other parts. In particular Swing and AWT are covered richly, while networking and JNI get shorter shrift.

Given that Swing and AWT are not at the core of modern Java development I would have liked to have seen more of this tome sized book spent on threading, JDBC and networking. And it would have been nice to see some serious coverage of EJB. That being said, what is there is well written, has good example code, and effective illustrations.

Updated for Java 6, "Core Java Advanced Features" does not disappoint. This is for those of you who have finished volume 1, either this 8th edition or the 7th edition. Quite frankly, I think in the case of Volume 1 you can skate by with the older 7th edition. However, in the case of the eighth edition of Volume 2, there is quite a bit of expanded coverage to the tune of the resulting book being over 1000 pages in length. It follows the same format as past versions of Core Java Advanced Features. The authors start at the beginning of each topic and walk you through increasingly difficult programs and very well done illustrations and screen shots of applications that are really quite helpful. I include the table of contents since it currently is not included in the product description.

1. Streams and Files
2. XML
3. Networking
4. Database Programming
5. Internationalization
6. Advanced Swing
7. Advanced AWT
8. Javabeans Components
9. Security
10. Distributed Objects
11. Scripting, Compiling, and Annotation Processing
12. Native Methods

Before you go out and buy expensive books on the topics in any one of these chapters, get this book and read the corresponding chapter. It will make whatever you hear or read from that point forward much clearer.

I was a little harsh reviewing Vol I. but find Vol II a bit better. Vol II dispenses with most of the fluff and get's straight to the point. This book is good for the intermediate developer who really understands the language - I didn't feel Vol I really taught you the language and found books more formal on the topic. When you decide to expand into more advanced areas of java this book will give you a great overview. However, the depth of each topic covered is just enough to allow an individual to accomplish the - bit more than - required task. An example is the chapter on RMI: the author does a great job of conveying how RMI works and successfully deploys a single JVM application. However - as another reader stated - there are issues when deploying as a client/server (two seperate pieces). These issues are not fully addressed. I don't blame the author for not digging deeper into each subject matter. Java is such a robust language that an author would have to have a series of 6-10 volumes (similar to the Cisco engineering set) to completely cover everything. My recommendation is buy the book to get a grasp on important (semi-advanced) features and look for alternate resources for more coverage.

SCJP2

Horstmann and Cornell strike the right balance between an entertaining read and a serious reference.

I am a C++ craftsman and i recently had to implement a component in Java. I started by relaying on the online documentation of the API, but i needed something a little less dry and with a broader perspective. Most books I looked at looked like they were aimed at teenagers or dummies. Core Java was serious enough to get me to the heart of the matter quickly and yet entertaining enough to keep me reading a whole chapter without the book falling off my hands.

Like volume I, very thorough and very well done. Example are good, the text is good. Comparisons with other versions and other languages puts Java out there for the reader to grasp. Good job Cay.

I use this book (and its Volume I) for a course I teach at the University of Delaware. It's wonderul. It's definatly written with the experienced programmer with lots of experience but none in Java in mind. You can really pick Java up quickly with this book and it makes a good reference material as well. If you already know how to program and want to learn Java and experience the powerful features of the language and the APIs and class libraries that come with the Java 2 SDK, then this is the book for you.

I am a java developer and I do masters degree in CS part time. Vol I & II of this book have been a very useful reference for my school projects and my work for the past 4 years. My co-workers also borrow them! I never really found a better book about java development.

For sure there are things that I would rather like to have been done differently but no book is perfect, suffice it to be useful and this book is not perfect either but it has really been useful for me. Like another commentator said, it has a good balance. It is not a book for teenagers or a "for dummies" book and it is not as dry and hard to understand like the java online documentation. It is technical and serious enough and at the same time clear and simple enough (and yeah, It does not waste so many pages explaining what a computer is or telling you step by step how to do things like.... "click file->New->Class, type in the name of the class and press OK"...) Also as compared to the SCJP book, it does not distract you with codes tricks or gotchas meant for the exam but not really useful in real life scenarios.

I am a mature (i.e. old) professional who uses computers for custom problem solving, i.e. I am not a professional programmer, but pretty darn close.

There is a lot of books out there on Java programming, but the vast majority of them suffer from two deadly sins of technical writing:

- either they regurgitate other, usually free, information (like help files or manuals that come with the software) in the hope you wouldn't notice and buy it anyway

- or they assume you are a sheer idiot who needs to be fed trivia along with simplistic info, lest you become bored or worse, won't get it and drop the book.

Well, I do get it and I appreciate anyone who does not waste my time by underestimating my mental capabilities. This book proved to be the one and only material I can read without cursing - professionally written, covering all the right topics without being too cute or condescending, providing answers to most questions an intelligent, computer-literate professional might have while attempting to learn Java all the way up to advanced professional apps. My main need was to learn the ways to implement trees with editable fields, and this book took me right up to it. I had to search the web for some extra coding examples, but all peculiarities of the live code I had encountered were to be found in one of the Core Java (either vol I or this one).

You want to learn something useful, get these books.