Customer Reviews

The Java Tutorial: A Short Course on the Basics, 4th Edition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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This book is a terrific introduction to the Java programming language. It has been written to coincide with the release of Version 6 of JSE (Java Standard Edition). I had not seen the previous editions of this book, but I was quite impressed with the entirety of this edition. In particular, I really liked the organization. There is a brief chapter that introduces you to the basic recipe of writing Java programs on various platforms, and then the book gets down to business with object-oriented concepts first, before it tackles any other issue. Next it tackles the basics of the Java language specifically - variables, operators, expressions, control flow, classes and objects, and then interfaces and inheritance. This gives the novice an idea of how to do very basic programs in Java that include its object-oriented facets. Next, the more elegant concept of generics is introduced. The book makes it clear not only how to use them, but why you would - they add stability to your code by making bugs more detectable at compile time. Oddly enough, the next chapter is where the author chooses to introduce the creation and usage of packages. This is generally saved to the end of most books, since bundling classes and interfaces into packages is not something that the novice Java programmer needs up front, but it is a well-written and well-illustrated chapter on the subject. Next the author returns to more basic Java topics - numbers and strings, exceptions, and basic I/O. It is hard to do anything meaningful in Java without a grasp of these topics, and the book does an especially good job of explaining the confusing world of Java I/O.

The chapter on the Java Collections Framework is made easier by the previous chapter on generics. The chapter on concurrency is well done, and catches you up to concurrent processing on the Java platform as it exists in Java 5.0 and later. Regular expressions will probably be old hat if you are from the world of Unix scripting, but this chapter does not make any assumptions and explains the concept from the beginning and then how that concept is implemented in Java. Next is an oddly practical chapter on the platform environment that includes issues like system utilities and the PATH and CLASSPATH environment variables that you almost never see published in a book. Usually, you see Swing explained along with exceptions, but since properties and exceptions have already been covered, this makes explaining the complex issue of GUI implementation with Swing a bit easier. The book concludes with chapters on JAR files, Java Web Start, and the ancient topic of Applets, which, after all, is the reason Java was such a hot language in the first place. Appendix B is a handy one on preparing for Java Programming Language Certification, which was not the purpose of this book, but it certainly is a useful tool in this process.

Each chapter concludes with questions and programming exercises to test your knowledge. The book clearly explains each topic, has plenty of good illustrations, and lots of sample programs to illustrate the points being made. If you are a beginning Java programmer, I can't see a better way of picking up the Java language in its most modern form than this book. The following is the table of contents:

Chapter 1. Getting Started
Chapter 2. Object-Oriented Programming Concepts
Chapter 3. Language Basics
Chapter 4. Classes and Objects
Chapter 5. Interfaces and Inheritance
Chapter 6. Generics
Chapter 7. Packages
Chapter 8. Numbers and Strings
Chapter 9. Exceptions
Chapter 10. Basic I/O
Chapter 11. Collections
Chapter 12. Concurrency
Chapter 13. Regular Expressions
Chapter 14. The Platform Environment
Chapter 15. Swing
Chapter 16. Packaging Programs in JAR Files
Chapter 17. Java Web Start
Chapter 18. Applets

This book is based on the tutorials available on the Java site, but I found this didn't worry me at all as I read the book.

I have always been impressed with 'The Java Series' of books from Sun and this one ranks well. But while I was prepared to accept a more superficial transfer from the web version, what I got was much nicer. The book includes many important topics that are required to move from 'basic Java' to serious development, and while the collection topics alone is enough to recommend the book, the coverage is a mixture of the basics, advanced, and the "need to know" which impressed me.

The coverage of the very basics is a lighter than in many beginners books so you wouldn't want this to be your only book, but I would certainly recommend it to people who have a grasp of the Java basics, anyone moving to Java from another language, or even if you haven't done much work with Java 5 and would like a decent reference for the additional material.

All things considered, this book has better coverage and more uses to a larger audience than I expected and look forward to having it near me on the book shelf for my future needs.

This book is basically just the online tutorials, but it is much much easier to go through them in book form. I found the book easy to read and a helpful reference to flip through. It includes a CD which contains an only slightly out of date Java 6.x and all the trimmings, plus the tutorials and source code for the example. Better to get a new Java from Sun if you are seriously going to use the language, but the one on the CD should be good enough to experiment with.

So far I'm on chapter 5 and everything is fine except for inheritance and interfaces I think that the explanations and the examples are confusing, but I do recommend this book.

If you are new to Java, this is probably one of the best choices you have. Biggest plus is that the book is greatly balanced, showing both basics and more advanced concepts of Java programming language.

I used this as a supplement for my textbook for a Java class I was taking. It was very good at explaining the concepts that the textbook made complicated. I recommend this book for someone taking a beginning Java class who needs a little more than the textbook explains.

This is basically the Sun online Java tutorial in book form. It is much easier to use than the online material. The coverage is extensive, but there is not a lot of explanation, hand holding, or sample apps. Good for Java newbies, but not programming newbies. A great introduction and reference for those who want "just the facts."

Although there are similar tutorials on Java available online free, this hard copy is excellent and well worth it's weight in gold! I recommend it to anyone interested in learning Java with no object-oriented programming experience and/or Java experience.

A good book for revision of early OO principles and beginning programming in Java. The book starts at the very basic level and moves on quickly which is good for someone who has been out of the loop for several years. I found that some early explanations assume more than basic level of knowledge. For example, to create a class, it is pointed out that the "main" method is not required but the early explanation and Java build code forces a "main". The notes do not explain how or where to make the class outside main. (However I haven't accessed the included training disc so may have missed a point). Otherwise, so far the book is generally very readable, easy to follow and appears to be well up to date.

This book was a great purchase! I've been using this book for an on-line Java course. It's been great because I can have the book open while the instructure walks through the Tutorial version of this book. I can highlight the topics that my instructor thinks are most important.