Java Secrets [Paperback]

Elliotte Rusty Harold (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764580078 | ISBN-13: 978-0764580079 | Publication Date: May 28, 1997

Uncover advanced, undocumented Secrets of Java -- from Java's internals to its thread model.

After you've mastered the basics of the Java language, Java Secrets is the book you will need to boost your proficiency. Author Elliotte Harold reveals information Sun would rather you didn't have, such as how to develop stand alone applications and go beyond the security restrictions normally imposed on Java programs.
-- Get under the hood and explore the advantages of the Java language, from its data structure to threads the garbage collection and more.
-- Master the undocumented Java classes for increased control and speed.
-- Explore platform-specific native APIs to write industrial strength stand-alone applications.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Java is generally a well-documented language, but not every language feature is fully specified, documented, or identical across all platforms. Java Secrets takes you into this Java twilight zone and introduces you to the language's hidden power. The book's first section explores the inner workings of many Java mechanisms, including representation of data types in memory, argument passing, and the implementation of strings and arrays. The author also investigates niceties of threading models and garbage collection as implemented on different Java platforms.

A large group of undocumented classes (the sun.* packages) constitute what amounts to an undocumented Java application programming interface (API). The next large section of Java Secrets details these classes and how to use them safely. Although these classes ostensibly exist to support the Java environment, you'll learn how to use many of their interfaces for a variety of tasks including layout management; FTP, HTTP, mail, and news communication; data encoding; and character conversion. A final big chunk of the book is devoted to techniques for adding platform-dependent features to Java applications. This is a controversial subject for a supposedly platform-independent programming system, but the author provides a balanced assessment of the benefits and drawbacks.

All in all, this is one of the most interesting, unusual, and engagingly written books on Java programming we've seen. It's hard to imagine a serious Java programmer who wouldn't find it well worth his or her time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 900 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (May 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764580078
• ISBN-13: 978-0764580079
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,503,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elliotte is originally from New Orleans to which he returns periodically in search of a decent bowl of gumbo. However, he currently resides in Irvine, California with his wife Beth, dog Shayna, and cats Charm (named after the quark) and Marjorie (named after his mother-in-law). He's a frequent speaker at industry conferences including Software Development, Dr. Dobb's Architecure & Design World, SD Best Practices, Extreme Markup Languages, and too many user groups to count. He's currently working on the XOM Library for processing XML with Java, the Jaxen XPath engine, and the Amateur media player.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wait for the second edition., July 28, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Java Secrets (Paperback)

This book promises a lot, and often delivers. However, there are enough deficiencies that the prospective buyer should consider waiting for the second edition. The biggest problem with the book is that, like so many other Java titles, it was rushed out the door. This is most apparent in the book's figures, which range from perplexing to downright misleading, due to widespread errors and omissions. For example, the diagram of the byte layout for a little-endian machine is simply wrong. Various other diagrams which show the stack before and after various bytecode operations are half-finished -- literally. They have one or two parameters filled in, and the rest are blank. It's mind-boggling that the editors thought it wasn't important enough to get these simple things right and delay the book's release slightly. But that seems to be the current thinking behind many current Java books. Fortunately, Harold's text is generally correct, even when the figures aren't. So if you're willing to pointedly ignore the figures, you can get some good information from the book. My only other complaint is a more subjective one: While promising to reveal Java secrets, much of the book focuses on the Sun classes, which are not guaranteed to be portable at all -- Harold addresses all this well, but the bottom line is that well over 50% of the book is devoted to these non-portable classes. If this is what you're looking for, it's a great resource, but if you are not interested in the inner workings of the Sun packages, you may be somewhat disappointed.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book on the Java Language - lots of mistakes, April 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Java Secrets (Paperback)

There sun classes are interesting, but outdated now. The book contains many typos and misprintings. This author seems to write books in a rapid succession and unfortunately includes a lot of mistakes. Mistake-riddled seems to be a common theme in most reviews of Rusty's books.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for reference., July 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Java Secrets (Paperback)

This is not a book where you gonna learn how to write HalloWorld.java and that's GREAT!! This book allow you to learn some new things about java that you didn't know before, but not as much new stuff as the author promised you in the beginning of the book. If you have programmed java for a while and want to discover new tricks of java, this could be the book for you.