Customer Reviews

Introduction to Java Programming-Comprehensive Version (6th Edition) (GOAL Series)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you prefer your computer technology learning in textbook style, then this is an excellent choice in books... Introduction to Java Programming - Comprehensive Version (Sixth Edition) by Y. Daniel Liang. It's an entire college-level course in Java in one very big (and well-written) volume...

Contents:
Part 1 - Fundamentals of Programming: Introduction to Computers, Programs, and Java; Primitive Data Types and Operations; Selection Statements; Loops; Methods; Arrays
Part 2 - Object-Oriented Programming: Objects and Classes; Strings and Text I/O; Inheritance and Polymorphism; Abstract Classes and Interfaces; Object-Oriented Design
Part 3 - GUI Programming: Getting Started with GUI Programming; Graphics; Event-Driven Programming; Creating User Interfaces; Applets and Multimedia
Part 4 - Exception Handling, I/O, and Recursion: Exceptions and Assertions; Binary I/O; Recursion
Part 5 - Data Structures: Lists, Stacks, Queues, Trees, and Heaps; Generics; Java Collections Framework, Algorithm Efficiency and Sorting
Part 6 - Concurrency, Networking, and Internationalization: Multithreading; Networking; Internationalization
Part 7 - Advanced GUI Programming: JavaBeans and Bean Events; Containers, Layout Managers, and Borders; Menus, Toolbars, Dialogs, and Internal Frames; MVC and Swing Models; JTable and JTree
Part 8 - Web Programming: Java Database Programming; Advanced Java Database Programming; Servlets; JavaServer Pages; Remote Method Invocation
Appendixes: Java Keywords; The ASCII Character Set; Operator Precedence Chart; Java Modifiers; Special Floating-Point Values; Bit Operations
Index

At over 1300 pages, you'd expect there to be quite a bit of material covering a wide range of topics. And you'd be right... Liang has written a textbook on Java, and it's one textbook that I'd probably buy even if I wasn't enrolled in a class. As you can tell from the contents, everything from the very basics of the language (like primitives) to highly advanced topics (like RMI) are covered in at least some level of detail. Once you get done working through the material (or the semester ends, whichever comes first), you should have a complete understanding of Java. From that point, you'll simply need experience. Each chapter is laid out with objectives, the material, quite often a case study that ties together everything in the chapter, a summary, review questions, and programming exercises. There's even an entire website devoted to supporting instructors that are using this book as their course reference.

One thing I noticed about this book is that early on they start using Swing examples to show programming examples using a visual interface. Most Java books have historically used command line programs to teach the language. It's an acceptable method, but it tends to make the use of GUI features something to be learned separately. Since there's a mixture of command line and graphical examples from the beginning, the mental divide between the two types of programs is greatly diminished. It probably means that Java will be thought of as a Visual Basic language that can be used to mock up applications. That's a good thing...

Excellent coverage of Java, clear layout of material, and aesthetically pleasing design... a good choice...

I am learning java on my own. I have tried few books before with varying degrees of satisfaction. This book by Dr. Liang really help me to understand the basics. The topics are explained in concise manner with help of numerous illustration. It is indeed true that a picture worth thousands of words.
In addition, I appreciate the author provides solutions to almost all review questions on website. This is really useful for me to check my answers and learn from it. It is in contrast to some of the books whereby the answers is treated like a 'secret' to you. There is also supplementary materials like online quiz on the author's website.

I have the pleasure of starting to learn Java and OOProgramming from scratch through Liang's book. Being a novice at this but already possesing two degrees one in engineering and an MBA I have had my share of good and not so good books, on many subjects. I have already purchased several books on the subjects of Java and OOP, modelling etc. Liang's book is the epitome of how a modern book should be designed and written! It seems that Liang has carefully 'listened' to the needs of the student of Java. It starts gently with the very basics and slowly builds up; the way it is designed with reminders on the sidelines, tips, notes and hints allows one to go through almost the entire text without having to underline anything. This and the very helpful material on Liang's site, make this book indispensable reading for anyone that is seriously interested in learning Java. The exercises and the programming problems are carefully selected to test your knowledge of what you read in the chapter, thoroughly. If you skip over the details, you will have to go back and review to get them right. Buy it and enjoy the Java journey!

I hesitate to write a review because I'm simply a student. Maybe that makes my review better or worse, you judge. This school year, I have taken Intro to Java, Advanced Java and E-Commerce programming at the college I'm attending. This book is NOT one of my assigned college textbooks but one I obtained to give me a little extra help. I have not touched my Java textbook since January.(The instructor is teaching forms and DB connections which my "textbook" didn't touch.) I don't know what I would have done without this book. Failed I suppose.
Anyway, I have been able to compare my college textbook with this one and it's no contest which is better. My college textbook will sit on my shelf and this one will be by my side when I'm programming.
Not only was this great for Java but now the later chapters are helping me clear the confusion I have from my ecommerce class. I think I learned more about ecommerce in 50 pages here than I have in 250 from my other textbook. That textbook will join the other one to collect dust. In my humble opinion, this was the only book I needed for the 3 college courses I mentioned.

This is an excellent text. It goes into great detail for an "introduction". The excercises at the end of the chapters are very well designed using everything you've learned up to that point and re-writing old excercises more efficiently using the new topics learned. His website also has alot of additional information. Head First Java is a good overview, while this text digs down to the details. Very good author and very good text. Highly recommended. One note though, this is a very long text with alot of information so if you plan of reading the entire book and doing all the excercises you will need to invest a large amount of time to do so. But if you do invest the time you will have a very good grasp of the Java language. I usually always say that there's never a "one-book catchall", but this comes pretty close. I feel that by reading this book, doing all the excercises, and making sure that you fully understand the topics, you can adequately program Java in a work environment.

While I feel this is a good book for learning Java, I don't find the 6th Ed. to be an improvement over the 5th Ed.

I don't understand the author's motivation to move complex topics into earlier chapters. It only seems to distract my students, who are learning OO principles for the first time. In particular I feel that packages, regular expressions, and text i/o, are introduced unnecessarily early. The piecemeal treatment of GUI issues at the ends of the earlier chapters only seems to undermine the reasons for having a whole chapter on GUIs later. Also, why not deal with the ArrayList collection in the chapter on collections?

I liked the 5th edition better, and the 4th edition even better than that, because they dealt with the fundamental issues first, and didn't try to mix in so many marginally related issues early on.

My only complaint is a lack of summary information organized by language feature (similar to Java in a Nutshell presentation style). The result is that when you want confirmation on a particular detail of the language, it may take you a while before you find the right page.

Very good book. I bought this book to learn Java on my own. I've been looking for a book on Java that wasn't TOO basic but wasn't hard to understand either. I don't like books that treat you like you're a first grader or like you're some genius. This book achieves a good middle ground. It explains everything in great detail but it's not redundant. There are exercises at the end of the chapters and reviews as well. The exercises are rated from 1-3 stars in difficulty and are fun to work out to make sure you're understanding the chapter. Right away the book shows you how to write GUI programs so it's very encouraging. It shows a lot of code so that you get practical examples and not just definitions and theories. Even though this is an older version of the book talking about Java 1.5 and the current version is 1.7 the differences are not that great and it's a great buy for under $10. The book focuses on the language instead of the version differences (although it does mention them) so it's useful even though it's older. I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for a comprehensive book on Java.

I bought this book motivated by the good reviews that i saw on amazon. I was very pleased not only with the wealth of information(Fundamentals, OOP, MVC, JDBC, JSP/Servlets, JavaBeans, Swing/Advanced Swing, Collections etc ), but also from the presantation which is consice and very easy to follow. This was the text that did it for me. I struggled with other texts and the presentation was always missing something to say the least. Thanks to this book i was able to move to the world of J2EE and my biggest problem was dealing with application servers than with the java language itself.
My current position demands some C# .Net development and once again i am struggling with horrible incomplete Books that neglect to provide the hole code assuming previous knowledge.
I thought that may be Liang has written something about C# (Unfortunatelly not), but i was sad to see that there is
some critism which i consider unfair -not so much for the author but -for those who are trying to learn java.
I dont Know how to strech this more but listen: There is no better intro
book in programming. May be an experienced teacher has objections about the right positioning of the chapters but believe it or not after reading the first 7 chapters you are able to skip to any chapter you want(At the beginning of the book there is a flow chart that helps you guide your study according to your needs). Also dont forget that it is a programming book which tries to teach tough theoritical ideas in a practical way and dont fool yourself that there is a
way for doing this without your ability to understand.
Finally i saw that someone suggests a well-Known book instead of Liangs. I already own that book and its really confusing . A ton of information mixing together without making a specific point. If you dont beleive me just check the review for the book.

Y Daniel Liang's Introduction to Java Programming, 6th Edition struck me as different from other Java books in a few ways. I have gone through Lewis & Loftus' Java Software Solutions, 3rd Edition and found it easy to follow along with because of the pleasantly colorful pages. However, Liang's book has its own advantages: on the sides of every page, the important terms are written, indicating where the term is defined - this is extremely useful for finding especially since the "Key Terms" at the end of each chapter give a page number as to where the term can be found. I also like how Liang has so far avoided forcing the student to download and use any specialized libraries that aren't included when you download Java. For example, the Lewis & Loftus text comes with a CD containing the code examples and extra libraries such as a class which simplifies the process of getting user input to the console.
The only thing I dislike is that I tried to check out the "Companion Website" and had trouble trying to find the resources that were promised - Perhaps this is because this book is an older version or I'm just incompetent in looking for it.