Customer Reviews

Jfc Unleashed (The Unleashed Series)

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I found the book well-written and informative. However, I found that the lack of support for the software on the attached CD was extremely frustrating. The authors state that the third party tools on the CD are not supported by them, however, they at least owe the reader a set of instructions that allow the installation of the third party products. Case in point: the JBuilder demo, which requires a serial number/key to begin the installation. Nowhere on the CD is there anything that shows how to get around this problem. When such software is advertised on the cover of the book, it should at least be accessibly without having to call the vendor.

This piece of work is a terrible example of a book written with the main purpose of being first in the market and making the most money as fast as possible.

The JFC 1.2 platform was available from Sun early December 1998, and this 1400 page book was released in January 1999. The number of simple typos and pure errors are enourmous. Also, most internal references to the system uses the term "JDK 1.1" suggesting that the book is just a copy-paste operation from an earlier edition.

But the worst is this: One of the most important elements of the entire JFC is the very general GridBagLayout manager that is used to arrange UI components within windows and dialogs. Even if every aspect of the JFC claims to be covered in the book, this maybe most important part is not mentioned with a single word. An the reason is simple. THE AUTHOR DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT! In the reference part of the book the following explanaition is given. Quote: "GridBagLayout is, without a doubt the most powerful layout manager in the JDK 1.1. It allows for very specific customization of the screens look han feel. However, it is also very hard to use. Having worked with Java since December of 1995, I have only begun to understand GridBagLayout, and still find tools like Visual Cafe invaluable when building screens using this class."

I was tempted to take the book back to the store and ask for my money back.

Excellent source for gaining an understanding of the JFC. Covers the Swing, MVC, and other JFC concepts such as design patterns.

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