Customer Reviews

Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have waited to write this review until I had finished the book cover-to-cover in order to give a fair review. I bought this book because of the author Herbert Schildt. I have read several of his books and found them all to be informative, easy to understand and well written. While I was disappointed in some aspects of this book, overall I liked it. I think, however, everyone should know what this book has to offer prior to buying it. It may not suit the needs of some potential buyers.

This book is broken up into four sections: The Java Language, The Java Library, Software Development Using Java, and Applying Java.

The first section was the best and most detailed section of the book. It goes from page 4 to page 340 and is an excellent tutorial for learning the Java language. It doesn't talk about the AWT, applets, or any graphical programming for that matter, but gives the reader a firm foundation with which to move into those more interesting Java programming areas. This section alone was worth the price of the book. (while I agree with another reviewer that Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java was a great book, I like this one better because it doesn't keep referring back to C/C++ all the time).

From the start of the second section through the end of the book, this book takes on a different approach. Instead of detailed descriptions as offered in the first section of the book, it begins to be an overview. Many topics are touched upon and many examples are given, but the reader is not given enough information or depth in these chapters to make them very useful.

The bottom line is, this book provides a firm understanding of Java's syntax and object oriented programming. After that it provides brief glimpses of the many kinds of programming you can do with Java.

If you don't know where you want to go with Java, this book is, in my opinion, the best way to sample Java enough to make your decision. If your purpose in wanting this book is to be an applet programmer (or do any graphical programming for that matter), I think you would do better to read the first section of this book (to page 340) and then read the Graphic Java books, volumes I, II and III, which cover the AWT, Swing and 2D API respectively.

When I needed to learn the Java programming language very quickly for work, I read many reviews and narrowed down my search to handful of few books. I looked at copies of my final possible choices in a local bookstore and finally purchased Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" and have absolutely no regrets. Along with this book, I realized that I would also need a more comprehensive reference book detailing the multitude of Java classes designed for many purposes. To this end, I chose Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition" not only for its extensive library, but also because of Herbert Schildt's wonderful writing that is easy to read and understand quickly.

Herbert Schildt subdivided "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition" into four parts: tutorial, library, software development and applications. Part I (the first 346 pages) is a Java tutorial, organized similarly to Herbert Schildt's other book that I purchased, "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition". However, the tutorial in this book is more condensed than in the guide, which has over 500 pages. Some readers may find the condensed approach in this book sufficient to learn the language, but if you want more comprehensive tutorial explanations, the guide is good companion.

Part II (the next 539 pages) is an extensive library detailing most of Java's built-in classes dealing with everything from string handling, collections, utility classes, console I/O, file I/O, networking, applets, event handling (mouse movements, button use, and other interactive GUI objects), the AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit), images and other I/O types including Regular Expressions. Part III (the next 128 pages) provides some information about Java Beans, Swing, Servlets and a helpful guide for migrating from C++ to Java. Part IV (the next 123 pages) shows Java in action with four example applications.

Overall, I rate Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition" with 5 out of 5 stars. It has become a constant companion as I learn and work with Java.

Though the writing of Mr. Schildt is very clear, the treatments of many of important java features are oversimplistic. For example,when I had a question on using "this" in a constructor to call another constructor,there is no answer in this book;the multithreading part gives only very impractical examples and you still don't know how to write multithreading programs after reading the whole chapter;the introduction of Swing is only a brief mention,to list a few.

I think "Thinking in Java" is a good book,which tells you what is happening behind the scene. However, it is understandable that no book could be titled "complete reference".

The book is really good when it comes to the basics of the Java language and syntax. However, there are a quite few typos and the code printed at times does not compile. Particularly the "box" program. Where the book really starts getting weary is in its dealing with I/O and advanced methods and classes. In this section, little or no examples are given on the use of certain classes. Also the way it deals with Swing and JDBC is pretty elementary. JDBC which is of great importance to serious Java Programmers is completely ignored except for a 10 line mention! These glitches apart, Shildt and Naughton deal with java authoritatively and comprehensively. It is a good introduction to someone who is new to java but it cannot be termed "The complete reference." The title misguides the reader..... --Sachit

I am new to Java and C++ and I have tried to read a few books on C++ and OOPs concepts, but this book is the best of the lot for beginners. It presents OOPs concepts very well in the beginning and gradually takes you into Java and how Java implements the various OOPs concepts previously discussed. I was also comfortable with the pace of the book.

I will recommend this book to readers who want to gain an initial understanding of Java, C++ or OOPs.

I recently purchased this book and the first thing I was made to realize was that I DID NOT need C++ background to learn JAVA. Whew! That was a relief. The chapters are very detailed and offers excellent information that even a non-programmer like me could easily grasp all the concepts about Java. It covers everything from the basics to the advanced. Was kinda dispappointed that more could have been covered about Java Beans...but overall, this is a good book to start out with.

This review is less a review than an endorsement---unpaid. Regarding my credentials, I have written software for a (good) living for decades. Besides many books by others, I've read several of Mr. Schildt's books, from those in C in the last century to those in Java in this one. All of his have been outstanding. In the blurb on the back of one of his books, it states that Herbert Schildt is the world's best writer on programming languages. High praise indeed. But true!

This book is a decent primer for someone just learning Java. The text touches on most subjects without getting too mired in depth. Notably absent from the text, however, is any mention of JDBC and Enterprise Java Beans. I can forgive the latter since EJB is rapidly evolving, but the former is inexcusable (and the reason this book gets 3 stars instead of 4). Nevertheless, still not a bad book. You'll just have to learn about JDBC and EJB elsewhere.

The best way to learn a new programming language is to churn a lot of code and get familiar with the language semantics and richness. Mr. Schildt follows the same teaching paradigm and initiates a novice in the world of OOPs programming using Java.

The book is of course not suitable for a person who has some background in Java. The book definitely targets the uninitiated in the OOPs concept and builds up considerably upon the concepts gradually. Some pros about the book:
* The book covers the language basics very neatly.
* Numerous examples make the comprehension better.
* Chapter on 'Multithreading' and 'Exceptions' are well written and neatly illustrated with working examples.
* Treatment of Java Event Delegation Model is one of the best among all the available texts.

Some cons for the same:
* Less focus on Swing and more on AWT.
* Very little coverage of important topics like 'RMI' and 'Serialisation'.
* Poor treatment of important topics like 'Inner Classes'.

All in all from a novices' perspective, the book presents a good starting point. But from an advanced programmers' point of view - the book has still miles to go.

This book is perfect for beginners, the first part is great,i really couldn't understand well the threads and IO part, but it was great in applets. A very organized book, wonderful way of explanation.
This book is 3 in one, it explains, it gives you codes and examples, and at the same time it works as a perfect reference book!!