Customer Reviews

Java 1.2 Unleashed

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

 

 

It's fun to read all the other reviews ;) I agree that this book is not for beginners who want to learn object orientation. But the fact is that many books are all the same. They start with a nice little example that everyone knows: class Hello{ public static void main(String[] args){ System.out.println("Hello world"); }} I think Jamie does a superb job. And for you beginners: This is a book with alot of code examples, such as the Black Jack Game! And I can tell you the code is well structured and follows an appropriate code standard. There are many nice exaples, like the complete HTTP Web Server, etc.

So if you know something about programming, and if you want to explore some interesting things in Java, this book IS very nice.

There are comments enough in this book for you people who at least have a clue about programming! Writing complete Javadoc for a book?? Who would do that, the book would end up with too many pages... This book is heavy enough and I really recommend it for interesting readers.

This book has examples that are show bad object-oriented design. Also, the code isn't commented.

However, it covers a fair amount of ground. If you know OO and just want info on Java 1.2 then it is okay.

I found this book to be an excellent book, despite others reviews. Definitely not for beginners, but a good read for anyone with some programming experience. What others have interpreted as lack of support for those with less experience in the language, I have noticed tends to be simply badly ordered chapters - There are some more advanced discussions at the beginning, and some introductory chapters later on...

Beginners don't try out this. if you have some exp. go for this.

If you've never programmed in Java before, skip this one. The books says you have the necessary background for this book if you've coded in C/C++, but you need a firm grasp of AWT and 1.1 classes before using this book.

This is evident no sooner than chapter 3 which discusses Java 1.2's extended security model. This is an important topic worthy of discussion, but not between introducing 1.2 API's and applet programming.

No depth as mentioned in the above reviews. Only worth your time as a reference, maybe.

It touches every aspect of Java programming, without getting deep in any of them. If you are have some programming experience, and want to learn about the capabilities of Java, this is the book for you. I especially like the numerous simple programs that illustrate the content.

To put a long story short,

Java 1.2 Unleashed has nothing to do with the previous titles in the series. I thought it was a book that actually HAD chapters for the beginner when I bought the book, but nope, the author was serious when saying 'experts only'. So, do NOT buy this book if you're a newbie.

This doesn't mean all experts should buy the book, though. The 60-70 pages on Swing are a perfect example of how Swing should NOT be introduced. The same stands for thread deprecation.

To summarize, only buy this book if you're interested in EITHER the enterprise APIs OR Java2D / non-standard API's (e.g. JavaMail).

Werner Zsolt

This is a comparative review - Java 1.2 Unleashed is compared to other four Java 2 books, namely:

Horstmann - Cornell: Core Java 1.2 (4th ed, Core series, Sunpress/ Pr. Hall, 1999)

Peter van der Linden: Just Java 1.2 (4th ed, Core series, Sunpress/ Pr. Hall, 1999)

Bruce Eckel: Thinking in Java (with the new chapter on Collections).

Aaron Walsh: Java 1.2 Bible (IDG Press, 1998).

I cover all the important areas of the books. Don't forget only the first volume of Core Java has been published. In the table below, I used parentheses to evaluate the corresponding chapter in vol2, 3rd edition of the book. Don't let these remarks mislead you - I'm only referring to the 3rd edition, NOT the forthcoming 4th one! Let's hope vol2 of 4th edition will be even better than the prev one (and also contain ALL the swing widgets and everything about Java 2D)

To summarize:

- The comprehensibility of OOP's discussion is outstanding in Just Java 1.2. All the other books are far worse in this respect. If you don't understand a word of the other 4 books' OOP chapters, give a try to Linden's book. Unfortunately, Linden's book is far more superficial than either Core Java or Thinking in Java. It's its being extremely comprehensive that makes it worth the money.

- All these books are particularly weak as far as Swing widgets are concerned. The only exception is Core Java. This book doesn't cover many widgets (only the basic ones), but is very thorough. Let's hope vol2 will cover all the missing widgets and the reader won't be referred to Topley's Core Java Foundation Classes.

- IDG's Java 1.2 Bible and Java 1.2 Unleashed plain sucks. The former is just a compendium with a lot of mistakes (the biggest error is that it says we synchronize on a method, so 2 or more threads can't call the same METHOD. It doesn't even mention wait()/notify(). The latter, Java 1.2 Unleashed, has nothing to offer to beginners. I hoped Jaworski would write a much better book (his 1.1. dev handbook was quite cool). His book just sucks, it covers a lot of additional, non-basic 1.2 APIs, while the discussion of basic (Swing, Java 2D) APIs is very bad.

- Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java could be much better. It indeed has outstanding chapters (inner classes, reflection etc) but discussing Swing just sucks. You indeed should get the book, but don't expect to become a Swing programmer after reading it. The same stands for the emphasis on the 1.0 event model - most AWT components are presented using the 1.0 event model. It's indeed a bad move from Eckel. Nobody wants to learn / code the old event model any more.

Maybe only 20% of this heavy book contains useful information. It mentions almost every feature of Java, but that's the problem -- it ONLY mentions most of them. It is helpful with the Java 1.2 Swing library, since many older books do not cover that much at all.

I've referred to it for information I cannot find in other books, but it does not provide a full explanation, and I end up looking elsewhere for a more complete understanding.

A real disappointment (as are most books on this subject). The authors were obviously getting paid by the page. After developing a front end application using 1.2 and swing -- I not once found any useful information here. Better look at another title.