Customer Reviews

Internet World 60 Minute Guide to Java

5 star:		(0)
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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(6)

 

 

Phew, I'm glad that I read the reviews here, I was starting to think I'd lost my mind. This is easily the worst programming book I've ever read, HANDS DOWN! I'd been a COBOL programmer and then moved to VB as well as just straight HTML so learning a new language shouldn't confuse me as much as this book had me confused. I can't imagine someone who is completely new to programming even attempting to use this book and it does in fact say beginning to intermediate as a Reader Level.

This is the worst book I've ever read in my own life. That could have been called "The worst 60 minutes on Java: an introduction on how NOT to program"

I didn't get my 60 minutes worth out of this book. Its best only as an overview of the language, and is dated (not covering Java 1.1).

Not much to say

If the aim of this book was to destroy Mecklermedia's reputation, it would have been considered a success. Unfortunately, its aim was to teach Java. Through its poorly explained examples and massively incomplete description of the Java language, it succeeds only in obliterating any existing knowledge that you thought you had about Java. This book probably did real harm to the acceptance of Java, since it was one of the first released, and many eager would-be programmers bought it. I have boycotted Mecklermedia ever since.
DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!

From the obscure descriptions to the non-compilable programming examples, this is certainly the worst book on Java I've seen, and possibly the worst programming book too. For newbies, I suggest the Dummies book, and for experienced c++ programmers, the O'Reilly Nutshell book.

Although there's a lot of competition for this, I think this book wins the "Worst Java Book in the Book Store" title hands down. A pathetic book full of buggy or uncompilable code and the usual minimal reformatting of the javadoc generated API listings. It is glaringly obvious that Mecklermedia wanted to jump on a bandwagon and commissioned a couple of people to write a book in a week or so. The Sun online tutorial is incomparably better and it is free.However, if you're critically short of toilet tissue one day and this is the only book in the store, it might be a worthwhile buy