The JDK 1.4 Tutorial [Paperback]

Gregory M. Travis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2002

This book lets experienced developers as well as novices learn JDK 1.4's new features quickly. It provides a clear exposition of the important new topics with plenty of well documented code. All the examples are substantial and solve real-world problems but aren't cluttered with unnecessary details. The new features are covered in a comprehensive and matter-of-fact way without digressions into philosophy or theory. After reading this book, a developer will be able to use Java's new features with confidence and skill. What's Inside *New Input/Output *Non-blocking I/O *Channels and buffers *Charsets and charset translation *TCP/IP connection forwarding *Java Web Start *Regular Expressions *Preferences Library *Java Secure Socket Extension *Image I/O

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A first rate book, extremely well focused and hugely helpful." -- Phil Hanna, author of JSP: The Complete Reference

"This volume is reasonably priced, hot off the presses, and will pay for itself many times over. " -- Focus on Java at About.com

About the Author

Greg Travis is a consultant and prolific writer based in New York City. He has been a Java programmer since the first day the language was released.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930110456
• ISBN-13: 978-1930110458
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,003,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book to transition to JDK1.4, September 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The JDK 1.4 Tutorial (Paperback)

This book explains for an experienced Java developer the new features introduced in JDK1.4. Particularly the sections on assestions and Collections are very lucid and I found them very helpful. All the examples in the book are presented in a detailed and clear manner and on going through them, it is easy for a reader to understand how to use the APIs.

Novice programmers may not find this book helpful as it seems to be targeted for those developers who are already using some flavour of Java 2 platform.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Guide to the new Features in Java 1.4, July 30, 2002

By 

Andrew (Highbury, South Australia Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The JDK 1.4 Tutorial (Paperback)

I found this book to be a good tutorial when upgrading to Java 1.4. Afterwards it was also useful as a reference book.

The book clearly explains the new concepts and features in Java 1.4 and has many examples. It doesn't waste time explaining how to program in Java instead sticking to the new features. It is good to have a book that focuses mainly on new features instead of being filled up with information that is already known.

It is a good book for finding out the new features of Java 1.4.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 7 years since publication, still going strong, July 1, 2009

By 

ThomasH (Santa Clara, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The JDK 1.4 Tutorial (Paperback)

Now in year 2009 we have JDK1.6 on our hands. Even the fundamental change of Java language through JDK1.5 generics and annotations dates back to year 2004, why would this book be of any value?

Well, it is. I see it here on sale by many, and I consider it a mistake. Here is why:

Travis mastered a great tutorial of how to use new library packages provided in the rather large upgrade through JDK 1.4, most notably providing:

1) NIO, the new IO system,
2) Java Web Start (JAWS)
3) Logging
4) Assertions
5) Regular expressions
6) Preferences
7) Java Secure Socket Extension (JSSE)
...and more!

Wow, this was a track load of new features added to the language's libraries. It takes indeed a book like this to describe them all. Most importantly, these new packages are of course very much current now in 2009, and for the the most part even unchanged since their release!

JDK1.4 was the last, and a very large at that, of upgrades to Java, which left the language widely untouched. With JDK1.4 we merely received the usual new load of a new functionality in the java.* environment. As we know, this has changed with JDK1.5, but this does not negate the usefulness of Travis'es text.

Reader will like his non-nonsense approach, diagrams and quite good example code. Some of it debatable, we always do have our own opinion about code, right? But, it serves the purpose. Especially if it comes to understanding NIO, I still consider his text (Chapters 1 and 2) unparalleled and best. I like the diagrams showing progress in channels and buffers, I understood instantly how to use NIO.

You sell it for what I see now below a dollar? Really? For me this book is a keeper, I will give it up only "from a cold hand of my dead body."