Customer Reviews

Java How to Program, Fifth Edition

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

10 word or less summary: tries to be too much to too many

Okay, so you want more detail. Well, first some background. I have taught out of Deitel books for a long time and have always considered them B+ books on the whole. So when the University jumped to Java and said they where using Deitel, I was not worried. After all, I had browsed their recent C# book just a while ago, and was impressed with it over the C/C++ book I had taught out of before. Ouch.

As a book for a fairly experienced programmer wanting to learn Java, you will find it a broad survey of Java with lots of examples. Not too much detail in any one area of course, but a fair spring board for further inquiry. There are some meaty examples for an `intro' book in here as well as some good problems for the students to work. All in all a 3.5 - 4 star book - if this is you. What it needs in this role? Focus more on the experienced programmer. Lose the UML and some intro stuff and give more in depth on some of the subjects covered. Also, ship the book CD with a newer IDE. Ours still come with the old Sun One Studio. I don't mind an old IDE, but one that practically locks up when you sneeze is not a good thing. How about Eclipse, or even JCreator failing that...

And for intro students? Not so good at all. Deitel frequently just skips around introducing things faster than an over caffeinated weasel, way ahead of really explaining them. This is okay for the somewhat experienced OOP coder who can see similarities to what he or she already knows and easily make allowances, but not for freshman intro students. I really hate waving my hands and saying, `ignore the code behind the curtain folks. And lets just all move on.' But too often this is what I had to do to a class of confused looking students.
None of the other intro profs and instructors at our University like this book for the first time intro student at all. One (not myself) went so far as to petition to have it changed. Well we shall see. In the mean time I have written about two hundred pages of notes that I teach out of. I treat the book as optional. For this audience, I rate it 2 stars.

The strength of this book is that it includes many examples and line-by-line explanations of the code.

The weakness of this text is that the information is delivered in such small pieces that students have a difficult time assembling the big picture. For example, a complete list of variable types (including arrays) is not developed until completing Chpt 7. Also, some methods are not covered in the text except in the exercises. This confuses students and leaves the instructor in a catch-up situation.

If you have experience in other Object Oriented programming languages, the weakness of this book will go unnoticed. However, novices will need supplemental information throughout the text such as an early list of datatypes and the associated parsing commands, a more detailed explanation of creating variables as copies of objects (i.e. greater focus on inheritance) and even inter-related items such as using the parameter name command to make web applets work correctly.

A supplemental lab manual is available. It is a great addition to classroom lectures or in a guided lab environment. The lab manual includes reading exercises as well as programming exercises. The programming exercises are directly from the text HOWEVER the lab manual includes detailed programming templates to give beginners that initial help developing good logic.

The first 3-4 chapters of this bbok are like a standard military uniform issue, and can be found in almost all of Deitel's books on the programming languages. That can be good anc comforting if you are already familiar with their style or if you are new ot programming. It can be painfully mind numbing for anyone with over 1 year's programming experience.

The structure of this book is no different from other Deitel books. So if you looking to tread unfamiliar terrain in familiar clothes, this is the book for you. If you want to get better value go look some place else. (I am looking too). Since this is the recommded text for the course, I am stuck with it for now. But personally, this is not gonna be my desk reference copy. Having said that.... the book does provide lots and lots of worked out examples (with logic and typo errors). color scheme printing eases the understanding process, and if you are a beginner in the java arena, stick with this book for now, until you are ready to fly away. and then you dont ever need to look back upon it.

I was throughly confused after reading the chapter on Exception Handling. There was so much repetitive usage of the phrases and words and concepts to explain a simple thing of the propogating of exception up the "call stack". Its taken me a full two days to unlearn what I read from this book and to relearn it on my own from various sources on the net and from the Java Tutorial. Ooff! what a pain. The one great thing about Deitel books is the similarity of structure and approach across all the programming languages that they have books on, but I believe that its this "similarity" that can become confusing!!

This book is low on my list of recommended books for students. Although the technical material and the coding examples are fine, the presentation is flawed by being peppered with truly distracting, if not silly, attempts to aid a learner. The effect is to overwhelm a student with information.

I chose this book as a text, on the recommendation of a colleague, for an Intro to Java course that I was teaching . After three weeks of using it, I regretted my choice. It is much too dense for a beginner. It also doesn't seem to have a good step-by-step method for learning the parts of the language, preferring to jump ahead into more advanced concepts that are mentioned in an offhand manner far too often. I found myself flipping back and forth constantly. Having said that, I feel that it is a good book to use if you have a decent programming background and a lot of time available. The examples are comprehensive (again, as long as you don't mind flipping back and forth), which would make this book a good auxiliary text.

I can certainly understand the point that the authors were trying to make in presenting us with a textbook that teaches Java while also teaching about the object-oriented paradigm and relating the concepts to software engineering and UML. For that, I can give the book an additional star over the one I would normally award; but that's all. The combination of these concepts within the pages of this volume is so cluttered, so badly written and so poorly executed as to make the effort all but useless. With so many less expensive and better written alternatives available (e.g., "Thinking in Java," which can be downloaded for free, and Bloch's "Effective Java Programming Language Guide"), there are simply too many options available. Between them and the many online tutorials that are available, there is no reason to saddle the reader with such a ponderous edition. Give this one a pass.

Let me begine by saying that the Deitel How to Program Series are the best programming books on the market. Now let me back-up that statement:

First of all, they assume the student is beginning with no knowledge whatsoever. The first chapter is Computer 101 with just identifying the basic components of the PC and the history of programming.

Secondly, the first 6 chapters focus in on the fundimentals of ALL programs. It is only in chapter 7 that we start to explore Object Oriented Programming.

Thirdly, the exercises at the end of each chapter are designed to make you think. You will not knock these exercises off in a few minutes.

There is a book within a book here that also discusses the fundamentals of Object Oriented Analysis and Design using UML modeling.

For those of you who have troubles conceptualizing OOP principals after chapter 7, you might want to supplement this book with Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java.

I cannot recommend this series highly enough. If you get through it, you WILL know Java and, more importantly, you will be a solid programmer with skills applicable to other programs.

The Advanced Java book is excellent also and should be followed with the completion of this book.

If I have one reservation, and just a minor one, it is that some of the exercises may be a little too mathematical in nature (things like linear regression). However, handled properly, it could greatly add to the learning experience.

This book is a must for any Java programmer no matter if he is a a newbie or a guru. Being a Java professional I have read a lot of books on JAVA, but this book is incomparable. It is very well written and its examples are of a great help. The best part of this book is the step-by step explanation of the concepts. The explanations are so clear and direct that even a beginner can understand the concepts quickly. Each chapter takes one new topic and explains it with simple steps and examples, which is an easy way to understand anything and that is really appreciable in this book. I think it really is a good buy...

Once again, Deitel has published a very impressive book. This new edition has been updated for Java 1.4 with, among other topics, coverage of regular expression and NIO. In addition, chapters on JDBC, Servlets, and JSP have been added. The chapter on object oriented programming and polymorphism has been rewritten and expanded into two chapters. The book has been cleaned up with redundancy removed in order to keep it around 1500 pages. Overall, the book is as complete as you would want in an introduction to Java. The book covers virtually everything in J2SE, gives a good primer on object oriented programming, covers design patterns and UML, and even gives an introduction to server side development. There's enough information in this book for at least two semesters of Java. All this information can be overwhelming but the authors use extensive, well commented color coded program samples to explain each topic. It is almost impossible to turn a page and not find either code samples or a diagram. In addition, there is a natural flow from topic to topic. This book was written as a college textbook and it has a college textbook "feel". Each chapter has well thought out exercises but the solutions must be purchased separately. A lab manual for this book is also available (release date, July 1, 2003). If you are planning on teaching a Java course and you are looking for a textbook this is book would make a good choice.