Customer Reviews

Java Precisely

5 star:		(10)
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2 star:		(1)
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If you're already a programmer, then Java Precisely is the fastest way for you to pick up Java. Finally, after spending embarrasing amounts of money on other books, I found the ONE book on Java that I like:

- This is a no-nonsense, no-frills book. Very precise, very concise.

- The book assumes the reader knows how to program, and perhaps even knows how to program in an object oriented language. If you know CLOS, C++ or Smalltalk, or if you've played with object-oriented "extensions" of other languages, then this books is THE shortcut to programming in Java now. Not tomorrow, not in 16 lessons, NOW.

- This book will not teach you computer science. It will not teach you programming. It will not teach you object orientated programming. You get straight to the point of learning the syntax and semantics of Java, and you get A TASTE of the class libraries (IO, collections, and more).

- Most Java books fall into the following categories: (A) Intro programming -- nice if that's what you want, but very boring if you already know how to program; Also very heavy! (B) "Web programming in N days"-type of books. These aren't as precise, aren't complete, cover GUI, and typically the older and faster AWT rather than Swing, and cover a host of other issues that are not really related to the Java langauge. (C) Complete References -- These are great dust collectors on your shelf. Impossibly heavy, prohibitively expensive, outdated as soon as you buy them. They're not the way to learn an object oriented language ANYWAY: Use Java Precisely to learn the syntax, semantics and basic paradigms of the language (threads, exceptions, etc), with a few very specific excursions into the class library, and THEN get a good IDE (my preference is IntelliJ's IDEA) and learn to use the online Java documentation to find your way through the immense class library. You don't want to own a printed version of the class library any more than you want to own a phone book for the entire US -- You want tools to find what you need online!

- The book is dirt cheap.

Use the book as follows:

- Buy it, admire it, show it to your friends, try to get it back

- Just start programming. Follow the examples in the book, page by page, and bug people for help when you're stuck. A good IDE will work wonders in how fast you can pick up a new language!

- Speed-read it over a weekend, just to get an idea of what the language offers

- Start working on your project, referring to language issues every time you need something -- the book is actually small enough to find things in it, and the index is great. Use the IDE to browse the online documentation for the class library, to find the classes you need and their documentation. Use Sun's online search engine to find examples, tutorials, FAQs and other documentation.

- This book is small enough to take anywhere -- take it everywhere.

With only 100 pages it's a relief to handle in comparison to the average book on programming languages.
The language is compact and it is a great reference book with good (and short) code examples and illustrations.

Can't remember (or never knew) whether you use '&&' or '&' for a bitwise 'and'? Want to use the 'switch' statement, but haven't used it in some time (or never learned it)? This is the book that lets you **quickly** check (or learn) an essential Java tidbit.

Most other books on Java are intended to **teach** the clueless, in which case your essential tidbit is lost among all the words required for context-rich explanation. But, you are not clueless. You need something without the fluff. This is the book.

When I was looking for a book for fast look-ups, I tried several including O'Reilly's Java Language Reference and Gosling et al's The Java Language Specification. I stopped looking when I found this book. This book is better organized, more understandable, and as complete(for the purpose).

Most surprisingly, the author achieves brevity without ever seeming to be rushed. Somehow he even finds space to include a large number of very helpful examples.

In my eyes, this book is to Java what Kernighan and Ritchies "The C Programming Language" is to C. It's clear, concise and to the point. If you have just some understanding of programming, this book is the best Java book on the market hands down.

If your Java is dated (I left around 1.2 and am now returning) or you know another OOP language and wish to get to the meat of the matter in short order, this is the book you need. As of this writing they're asking twenty bucks, which in my estimation gives it an extremely high bang for the buck. Programming neophytes may have issues with this book, however.

I want to see more brief and concise books like this (and indeed the author has done a C# version) on various computing topics. Does anybody really *read* the thousand page tomes that are out there nowadays? Folks, life is too short to waste on extraneous information.

This book is very small, but complete. These two characteristics allow you to find very quickly the precise and complete information you are looking for. Nevertheless, the book is not for learning Java from start; instead, it is to be used as reference by people who already has a general knowledge of the language.

I am ordering a new copy because I lost my first one.

This book reveals the true meaning its title "Java precisely". I wish all authors could learn from the beauty and teaching methodology of this book. Everything is explained with sheer simplicity, without making matters more complicated than they should be. It is very concise and to the point, without any unnecessary waste of paper. So many computer books are becoming bloated and heavy without offering any substance. As one of the other reviewers mentioned, this book reminded me of the K&R book of C. I can't wait to see more "Precisely" titles.

This book is a quick reference for most questions in Java usage. What I find particularly useful is the section on Java Collection and generics. A great work overall.

... and boiled it till only the essentials remained, this is what you'd get. There is no other book as concise and yet as complete. The 2nd edition covers Java 1.5 which addresses the concerns of some other reviewers that it might be outdated. Another reviewer compared it to K&R, which is a good comparison. You could very nearly write a Java compiler based on this book. Companion books include the "Java Language Specification" (Gosling, et. al.), and "Java Rules" (Dunn).

I got this book during my second semester of Computer Science when me and my friend were writing a very simple compiler that translated a subset of hybrid of C and Java into a stack-based language. This compiler was written in Java for the CS212 course in Cornell University. This book proved very helpful in guiding us through portions of the Java language that we didn't know existed. Alhough it doesn't cover the features of Java 5, it is still a great reference to the language and is worth the money.