Java Cookbook [Paperback]

Ian F. Darwin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596001703 | ISBN-13: 978-0596001704 | Publication Date: January 15, 2001 | Edition: 1st

The Java Cookbook is a comprehensive collection of problems, solutions, and practical examples for anyone programming in Java. Developers will find hundreds of tried-and-true Java "recipes" covering all of the major APIs as well as some APIs that aren't as well documented in other Java books.

The Java Cookbook, like the bestselling Perl Cookbook, covers a lot of ground, and offers Java developers short, focused pieces of code that can be easily incorporated into other programs. The idea is to focus on things that are useful, tricky, or both. The book includes code segments covering many specialized APIs--like media and servlets--and should serve as a great "jumping-off place" for Java developers who want to get started in areas outside of their specialization.

The book provides quick solutions to particular problems that can be incorporated into other programs, but that aren't usually programs in and of themselves.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a clear, bright piece of work, bursting at the seams with ideas for connoisseurs and snackers alike." John McLaughlin, Cvu, August

About the Author

Ian F. Darwin has worked in the computer industry for three decades. He wrote the freeware file(1) command used on Linux and BSD and is the author of Checking C Programs with Lint, Java Cookbook, and over seventy articles and courses on C and Unix. In addition to programming and consulting, Ian teaches Unix, C, and Java for Learning Tree International, one of the world's largest technical training companies.

Product Details

• Paperback: 864 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (January 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596001703
• ISBN-13: 978-0596001704
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,857,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ian has worked in the computer field for decades, starting on mainframes(!) and moving to ever-smaller computers (his smallest devices with keyboards currently include a netbook running OpenBSD and a Motorola Milestone smartphone running Android). He's written several O'Reilly books over the years, including the long-ago "Checking C Programs with Lint" and the "Java Cookbook" which is available in at least ten languages. Ian also teaches computer courses for Learning Tree International and runs his own consultancy, RejmiNet Group Inc. He lives on a hobby farm north of Toronto with his wife, some of their children, a cat and some chickens - which explains, at long last, the animal on the cover of the Java Cookbook.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical Examples Beyond Basics, October 22, 2001

By 

Bruce Van Horn II (The Colony, Tx United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Java Cookbook (Paperback)

OK, you've learned the basics. You know 'public static void main string args' from a hole in th ground. What now? I teach Java at a college. Only a small percentage of my students are CS majors. Most introductory java books lack good practical problems to solve. The Java Cookbook is a list of common problems and code examples on how to solve them. I learned more in two days with this book than I did with several very good java books because I need to see examples and how things work in context. If you're like that too, you'll love this book. I pack it with my laptop so I'm never without it when I need it -- it's that useful to me!

114 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Half-Baked Recipes, August 2, 2001

By 

"schapel" (Hillsborough, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Java Cookbook (Paperback)

The idea of a Java Cookbook is a good one. This book is very similar to the popular and widely acclaimed Perl Cookbook. Even though Perl is more useful for short stand-alone programs and Java is most effective in large-scale systems, a lot of Java code can follow a standard "recipe". For example, writing an equals method is a very common and surprisingly difficult task, so having a standard template available along with a discussion of important points is necessary for all but the most advanced Java programmers.

To judge the quality of the recipes, I checked out some very basic and common Java problems, such as writing equals and clone methods, synchronizing threads, and comparing floating point numbers. In most cases, I found flaws in the code or accompanying explanations. The discussion of equals doesn't mention that the hashCode method needs to be compatible with it. The recipe for clone has the method unnecessarily throw a CloneNotSupportedException. The explanation of synchronizing threads says that locks are held on methods, instead of correctly pointing out that locks are held on objects. The code for floating point comparison requires that the user keep track of the magnitude of the numbers being compared.

By using the term "Cookbook" in the title, I expected to find a collection of the best standard code templates. Instead, I found code samples that merely demonstrated a basic concept, and that they serve as only a starting point for understanding Java. Together with the misleading explanations, this book has the potential for confusing beginning Java programmers as much as it guides them. This book is best used as merely a guide to get the beginning Java programmer started. The "recipes" should be viewed as started points to be improved upon -- using them as is will result in less than optimal Java code.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much better than the first version, July 28, 2004

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Java Cookbook, Second Edition (Paperback)

I'm blown away by how much better the second version has improved from the first. I was so disappointed by the first edition that I swore off O'Reilly for a little while. One of my major gripes, the rampant use of classes provided by the author in libraries has all but vanished. In addition the anti-patterns of bad SQL use that are so rampant in other Java books are nowhere to be found, and in their place are recipes that show sane and proper use of JDBC.

I heartily recommend this practical work for Java engineers. For those not familiar with the first edition this is a solid practical work that covers a wide range of Java programming challenges. For those turned off by the first edition, you should take a look at the second, the improvement is profound.