Customer Reviews

Java How to Program (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(50)

 

 

Okay, this book won't let you miss much. Every detail is covered IN DETAIL, but only to the intermediate stage. If you have no idea what OOP is, I suggest you get this book before any other. OOP (Object Oriented Programming) can be a little tough to understand, but this book's approach is very good.

The book is LARGE (dense) and looks like the typical goofy Deitel tutorial, but it's actually a pretty good book.

NOTE - If you already know C++, you'll probably want to skip this one. But if you currently know nothing, or you are a VB programmer, then this would be an excellent purchase.

This is my gripe and the reason for three stars. While the self-study answers are provided, the solutions for the real exercises are NOT provided and they will NOT provide them unless you have some kind of arrangement with Prentice Hill. That was a very annoying discovery. You can't purchase the answers and they aren't available online, don't ever bother.

If not for that BIG flaw, this is actually a very good introduction to Java, and the pace is very good for the beginner.

If you don't buy this one, my advice is to look at Thinking In Java, Java Examples in a Nutshell, Core Java 2.0, or Just Java 2.0. Those are all VERY GOOD books and worthy of serious consideration. In addition, the ANSWERS are PROVIDED in those books! What a concept! You'll actually know if you have it down well enough to move on. However, once again, THIS book probably has the best introduction to OOP that I've seen, so if you don't know it, consider buying this one.

First of all, this is a great book... Especially if you don't know any Java at all. I bought this book for a class, sat down and went through every example in the book, tweaking them each time to get a better understanding of each concept. 6 months later, I am now have my Sun Java Programmer certification. This book is FOR BEGINNERS. If you are looking for more complexity, then buy a book marketed for the specific type of aspect of Java you want to learn. This was the best starting point for me to move onto learning more advanced techniques. Of course it means spending a little more on books that are more specific to advanced topics, but hey, that's life. If you want to learn Java, then start here, read the chapters, actually WRITE THE EXAMPLES, COMPILE THEM, RUN THEM, AND TWEAK THEM. This is HOW YOU LEARN TO WRITE CODE. Don't whine if you want you don't want to write out the examples, because when I sat through my Computer Science 1-4 courses, everyday I heard "Go to the lab, enter the programs, and modify them". To sum up... Buy this book if you want to learn Java from scratch, then look more into the areas that interest you after you've finished with it.

P.S. - In two months I'll be going for my Sun Java Developer certification, which I never would have gotten to without this book.

In glancing through the existing reviews on Paul & Harvey's book I was dumb-founded at the vitriol, sarcasm and ridiculous nature of the negative reviews of this book. I thought for a minute I was on some online Jerry Springer show. I am author (over a dozen books - published by J. Wiley) - and if you would, allow me to set the record straight on this book:

1. The organization is excellent

2. The technical content is clear, high-calibre and detailed (this "detail" is confused by the negative reviewers as redundance - but in fact, is very useful to a certain type of entry-level audience.) No statement is un-documented, no assumptions made on the part of the audience.

3. The workshops are a compromise between too much and too little detail. It is difficult to address detail-needs for the kinds of audiences that are learning Java at this point. Experienced C++ guys need little detail, born-again-COBOL programmers need gobs of it. Paul and Harvey do an admirable job of providing a mix.

4. The end-of-chapter "gotchas" - review section is worth the money by itself. This is basically information culled from their substantial classroom experience, and is unique in books I've seen.

5. As another reviewer mentioned, the authors are super-responsive (unlike the Sun site) - to Q&A. And they're technically very competent.

Could this book be better - folks, no book is perfect (especially not mine). But you'll look far & wide to find a technical learning book on Java - that delivers so much information so well.

Jon

I am a programmer who has been immersed in the procedural (and character-based) environment for seventeen years. I wanted to impart my personal experience in using this book.

I knew I wanted to update my skills and I wanted to start with Java.

Fortunately for me I was able to land a software contract job to develop a Java based application.

Unfortunately for me, I knew very little about Object-Oriented programming and nothing about GUI components (and absolutely nothing about Java or C).

By studying this book for a few weeks on my own part-time I was able to learn OOP and the Java environment well enough to start writing the code to develop this application. After about 6 weeks of coding I have learned a tremendous amount and now have a working knowledge of Java. I constantly use the book as a reference. If it were not for the book I could not have come close to being able to get this done. The end result is that I was able to put the lessons and text to immediate use, which was absolutely essential to me and the completion of the project.

The customer is very happy with the result and I am happy with the knowledge I gained. I think the book covered all the basics very well, even for an Object-Oriented neophyte like myself.

Well organized and a very good value for money if you as a beginner or a intermediate programmer
would really want to dig into Java, I would recommend this book..
I have been looking for a while for books with emphasis on topics like RMI,Multithreading,JMF and JDBC and i must say the coverage of this book simply blows me away.. With over 1,300 in pages of step by step information with emphasis on every written line on the code(and I mean every line!!)..The coverage of extended classes and the Abstract Windowing Toolkit classes is phenomenal..I particularly liked the Multitier Applications Using JDBC from a servlet. Mind you people that this book is robust and precise since the only problem i encountered was in the update functionality and the serializatin in the transaction processing of the File and Streams Example but the deitel website provides the errata correction for that so no problem di ba? ..Im a big fan of the deitel's and i must say I thank world the Deitel's exist..Java rules...Mga Amaw gwapo ko!!!!

The bipolar opinions of this book reflects a chasm between experienced programmers and everyone else. For those with years of programming, the Deitel text is probably God's gift. For everyone else, Satan couldn't design a better torment for all who have lost hope in figuring out what programming entails.

As a student in a Java course, I found this text inaccessible. There is no introductory chapter that goes into the fundamentals of programming: the importance of initialization, why values must be declared and how they are done so, the rationale behind subroutines, the principles of developing them, and why they need to appear in a certain order. The chapters do not get to the point of each topic. Instead, they but bombard the reader with technical verbiage: The rule seems to be to avoid ten-cent words where fifty-dollar ones will do. The Deitels are to Java programming what Parsons is to sociology--verbose and evading whatever point is to be made.

It seems that these problems are common to most so-called introductory books to programming. The sneer of one reviewer about those who found the text inaccessible reflects the elitist--and unprofessional--attitude of all too many programmers toward beginners and nonspecialists alike.

Programming is a useful tool and needs to be learned by many who are not specialists in the field. At the same time, there are too few programmers who know how to teach. The Deitel text reflects this lack.

This is an excellent first book for Java. However, if anyone expects to be proficient in Java after reading this book, you will be disappointed. Java is composed of many different and sometimes complicated topics. This book attempts to give you an overview of all of them. In some cases, the details you need to write your own code are lacking. Understand you will need other Java books to effectively program in Java. Having said this, I would recommend this book for those people with programming experience and wanting to learn Java. I would not recommend this book to someone with no programming experience.

I wrote an earlier review of this book that was good, but I've changed my mind. I read the second version of this book (not actuall this one) I've since read "Beginning Java 2.0" by Ivor Horton. THAT is the book you want! It's an excellent book for a much lower price! Read it's reviews, I think on average it got about 4 1/2 stars. I'm not an experence programmer, but I know how to and not how to write code and the Deitel book is how not to.

I don't know how it will turn out for those who never had at least one programming course and use this book as a beginner. But if you have some programming concepts/experience, you will find that this book can bring you up to speed in learning Java. I have only read a few chapters so far. Here are what stands out (and not so stands out) about this book: (1) Lots of illustrative examples. The best thing is that these examples all come with output screen shots. You don't have to execute each example to see the result. You can learn many things right from the book -- very helpful for beginners and convenient for fast learners. Because of this you can read this book anywhere without depending on access to a personal computer or Java compiler. (2) The author explains every single line of codes to you. There is no guessing or wonderring. But sometimes the author repeats his explainations over simple codes too much. (3) You not only learn Java, but also programming techniques and/or basic software engineering concepts. Some of the tips in the book could be annoyant, but you don't have to read them if you don't want. Note that this book does not seem to have a good organization of the order the topics coverred. But this organization probably does speed up learning experience for intermediate learners. (4) The plus thing is that it comes with tons of exercises and a very comprehensive summary (truly a plus for re-enforcing your previous readings). (5) Last but not least, another plus is that it comes with 3 different Java compilers/environments. This book may still be too expensive to some of you though (I paid a lot less than that with a $20 coupon :-) lucky me!).

That is it for now. I will probably come back for another review a few months from now. Hope my review will work for you.

I learned how to program procedural languages during the 1980s and tripped and fumbled over learning object oriented programming in the 1990s (for me, programming is a hobby, not my vocation). My library is filled with books on how to program Java but no book ever took into consideration how to systematically teach the intricacies of Java in a formalized way. Until now. This book is the best book on learning Java that I've seen to date. It's a textbook, and anybody who's gone to high school or college should be familiar with how textbooks work. There are copious examples, sample problems (with answers), clear definitions, well organized passages and much more that you'll need to learn Java. If you've been having trouble learning Java, check out this book before you give up. You'll be glad you did.