Customer Reviews

Java 1.1: No Experience Required

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

 

 

I took some programming classes back when I was in college, but never really consider myself to be a programmer. Later, I needed to learn Java since I had to manage a software upgrade project that was going to involve Java. I wanted to be competent enough to be able to look at the code and know what the heck was going on. This book is aimed at people like me who are real beginners and like to have the code broken down and explained line by line. The author does a very good job of explaining the concepts in a way that beginners can understand (that's rare, and is the reason why I gave it five stars).
Having said all of that, this book is a little out of date, but I'd still recommend it as a good first book that can be supplemented later with newer references to fill in the gaps.
The author published another book in this same series ("No Experience Req'd") on C++ that is also very good, with a similar title. I'd recommend that one as well if you need to learn C++.

I will definately recommend this book to someone, who is new to programming and /or new to java. It will not get you too far, but will give you a good starting point, without nightmares. The hands on approach ensures tangible results.You cannot get a easier book than this. If I were the author I would name if 'First book on Java awt'. Probably the best book in the beginer catagory. I have gone a long way after reading this book. Good luck.

I bought this book thinking I was going to learn Java. I haven't been able to get the java compiler to work. I followed the directions word for word and it does not compile from .java to a .class.

I had only some experience with programming before, but feared that JAVA should be a bit tricky to get the hang on. But this book comes with great examples that gets you going creating rather useful (when put together) JAVA applets. I'm only curious about a bug in one of the examples(lame). A good buy if you never programmed JAVA or C++ before. T.Andersson (sweden)

This is a great book if you want to start learning Java 1.1 from scratch and it also gives information about how it differs from C/C++ and Java 1.0. It also lets you learn how to write simple HTML programs for running Java applets.

The book starts off with an introduction to Java and the conventions it will use throughout the book (although the one for a complete source code file seems to have been left out). One nice thing here is that the CD that comes with the book is very useful as it contains the JDK 1.1.

The book is arranged into 15 chapters called 'skills' which take you through building simple Java programs and topics like; applets, applications, multithreading, animation, simple HTML programming and many more. The learning curve isn't steep and the programs you encounter later on build nicely on the experience you gain earlier on in the book. The book explains the examples and what the lines on the example programs in Java and HTML do quite well indeed by gradually building up a program and explaining what's happening along the way with diagrams. At the end of most of the examples you get shown the source code all together which is useful as an online reference. The book also contains well laid out tables of certain methods in programming and how those methods can be used. However, there is at least one error in the book but the CD contains most of the programs mentioned in the book so it can be useful to look up the source code there while you are working on that program yourself.

The CD with the book contains some products for Java programming although some or all are for a limited time period. The CD also comes with the JDK 1.1 which is very useful as you do not have to spend a lot of time (and possibly money) downloading it from the Internet. It also comes with the source code for most of the programs as mentioned earlier.

This is generally a very good and welcoming book indeed for people with no experience in programming and to C/C++ programmers. The way in which it teaches you to write programs by using examples and explaining gradually what is happening is very educational indeed in my opinion. This book would have got 10 out of 10 had it not been for the error(s) and the fact that the diagrams weren't very clear.

This book could be a 10, but since it doesn't bother covering version 1.1 like the name suggests ("Java 1.1"), it's a 2.

I disliked the book very much as it only discusses AWt 1.1 - no more, no less. The underlying Java language is not paid attention to - the author doesn't say what interfaces are and how they should be implemented (it doesn't even explain ALL methods declared in listener interfaces must be implemented. Speaking of listeners, adapter classes aren't mentioned at all).
The editing of the book is sloppy. The pictures are all edited by hand in ASCII - do you really think a pull-down menu is, at least, recognisable when drawn in ASCII?!?! Definitely not.

The two other subjects the book discusses are threads and jar files. Both parts are very badly written (compared to Core Java or, regarding threads, Sams Net's Java 1.1 Unleashed Second edition - much as Java 1.1 Unleashed 2nd ed only discusses 1.0, the chapter on threads rocks).

Of course, considering the chapters on AWT, they're really handy if you don't have a clue how to start with AWT 1.1. I can recommend this book if Core Java (the absolute killer) or even Teach Yourself Java 1.1 in 21 days is too complicated for you - you won't regret it. But be warned: this book doesn't tell you about most of the important things in the language.

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You have to buy this book I was so dumb I could't even make something good in Quick Basic but with this book I can make exelent looking programs and applets