Customer Reviews

Introduction to Java Programming with JBuilder 4/5/6/7 (2nd Edition)

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

 

 

This is one of the best Java texts I have come across, and being a computer scientist myself, I have seen many. If you truly want to learn the concepts of Java programming, by means of well-chosen, hands-on examples, and from an excellent teacher and explainer to boot, then this is the book for you. A special forte of this very readable text is the balance the author strikes between explaining object-oriented principles on the one hand and imparting practical programming and software-engineering knowledge on the other.

But the greatest plus of this book are the numerous brief programming examples that serve to elucidate salient points. There are literally hundreds of them, often just a few lines of Java code that illustrate some "popular" mistake, or some important feature of the language. Like a good coach, the author guides the reader's training by means of these exercises; he also knows exactly where the pitfalls are, and shows how to avoid them.

Two caveats. First, this book covers Java up to the Level 1 Java certification exam. If you are looking for JDBC database programming, you won't find it here. Second, the title of the book may be slightly misleading insofar as you will find JBuilder explained well, but only to the degree needed to program the examples of the book. A deeper explanation of JBuilder along with Java database programming and other advanced concepts may be found in the same author's book, "Rapid Java Application Development using JBuilder" (but read this one first).

To sum up, this book deserves its popularity as a great Java text in its own right. It will be useful to all those who are serious about learning Java programming, whether they intend to use JBuilder or not.

I took a course using this book. The book is easy to read and has a lot of short and good examples. I did not have any programming background before taking the course. I feel I learned a lot from the book.

I was dissapointed in this book. There are a number of "Beginner" texts out there for Java that cover most of the topics addressed by this book, at a signficantly lower price. I already know Java, and was looking for a good crash course on the Jbuilder environment. What I got was way more tailored to the beginning Java programmer, and not nearly enough to how to use Jbuilder.

I am a computer science student and have programmed in numerous languages including BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, HP SPL, C, and DELPHI (PASCAL). The course I am following based on this text is my first exposure to Java and Borland's JBuilder. While the text provides many sample programs, the applications are very specific and rather contrived. If you are an experienced programmer new to Java, you will find this text to be a poor reference. The skills most important to getting started with JBuilder, creating a new project and managing the files, are dealt with very summarily and may end up causing you hours of frustration. If you're planning to learn at home, I suggest searching a bit further before settling for this book.

I think this book is near-excellent. I have a great deal of programming experience in other languages, so I cannot speak for those who have had no programming experience. But for those who have, this book is terrific. If you want to get into Java, you might take a class that begins with GUI right away. This is a mistake, and the author recognizes this. He starts with basic programming fundamentals and then he explains object-oriented concepts in the two most important chapters 6 and 8. Only after you are comfortable with inheritance, constructors, and interfaces does he go into Swing. The Swing chapters are fun! You should do all the exercises. The only drawback to the book is that there are lots of typographical errors. But the author posts Errata on his web site and does respond to e-mail, so you can notify him when you see a mistake. Speaking of the web site, he has tests that you can take. These tests are not easy. He really tests your knowledge. I usually get a score in the 80s because there are many trick questions. But you learn to appreciate them because they really get you to study closely. I recommend this book to programmers experienced in other languages who are just now beginning Java. If you are new to programming, you may want to try another book, but chapters 1 through 5 should help you if you want to stay with this book.

JBuilder is, at least for me, a GUI based deveopment tool. For the most part the focus of this book is on the actual code rather than the GUI interfaces that are the strength of JBuilder.

The book provided a wealth of programming insight, but missed the mark relative to providing an Introduction to JBuilder based on the strength of its GUI development environment.

I am presently taking a Java course using this book and I cannot understand how anyone found that this book was well written or easy to understand. The author adds unnecessary elements to most of his examples, which confuses the reader, especially when the example is dealing with an abstract concept. I'm up to chapter 8 now and doing well in the course, despite the shortcomings of this book. At this point I find the book to be mediocre at best. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone, especially if you haven't had any programming experience. I'm sure there are better and CHEAPER books out there on Java.

This is a great book if you learn by example like I do. This is a college freshman level book. It was used at Texas A&M in 2002-03 and I believe it is still in use in 04. If you learn better by example than by pages and pages of theory, this is the book for you.

I believe that this is a good Java book. I am not a beginner programmer so i can not comment on the useability of it for the beginner but all in all it is a ok book.

I find that the part of the book describing classes and how to create them worthless.

I also found more errors in the book than I hoped to have found. Most of the errors were in the programming exercises at the end of a chapter. If there were in the chapter (how the code works...) then I wouldn't know since this was my only source of knowlede of Java other than the web.

I believe that this book is a little over proced for the knowledge that it conveyed. But if it is required for you CS (Computer Science) course get the book and suplement it with http://java.sun.com . It has a wealth of knowledge. All of Java's core classes are described there and their usage.

This book is not an introduction book. If you have little or no programming experience, do not buy this book. Other than being overpriced, the author introduces topics that are way too advanced for the beginner. This book is probably better for individuals that have some background in programming. Save yourself the money and find another book. The author should really consider revising this book. I think he has lost touch with the readers of his text in calling it an "Intro" book. I found other books at 1/3 the price that was much better. Total waste of money!