Customer Reviews

Murach's Beginning Java 2

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Finally there is a Java book for serious programmers doing real life business applications. Although the first five chapters must be read sequentially to ground the student in Java syntax and to understand the conceptual base of OOP - subsequent chapters may be taken out of order with little or no loss in the conceptual continuity. The examples and the projects are about real business implementations and not about toys, shapes or animals barking. The code examples work - and the explanations are direct, easy to read and lead the reader to total comprehension.

This book is not only for anyone who wants to learn how to program in Java (including those with no previous programming experience) - but for the seasoned Java programmer as well. It was the first time topics such as Date, Array, Vector and the file IO classes were covered to expose the depth and power underlying them.

After using several books that boast of "being the best" to learn Java 2, I have concluded this latest publication really is the best book on the market. When used in a classroom the material is seamless and the exercises work toward reinforcement. The book can also stand alone for the independent learner or the Java programmer who wants a deeper understanding. Don't be fooled by the title "beginning java 2" - this book is 700 (8x10) pages and it covers advanced topics such as Swing Layout Managers, JDBC and threads.

As a mainframe software engineer with over twenty years in the business, I have for several years now seen the need and have endeavored to learn some Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) language such as C++ or Java. Until recently, though, all I have had to show for my efforts is a stack of highly-rated but little-read books on the subject. The reason they are little-read is I would get about 4 chapters in to the book, only to get utterly lost and give up, and toss the C++ or Java book onto a stack of similar books in the corner of my home office, fighting the despair that I would ever learn any of this stuff.

Eventually, I got hold of Beginning Java2 (JDK 5) by Lowe, Murach, and Steelman; published by Murach and Associates. As a result of working through this book, I am glad to report that I am finally successfully writing programs using weird and bizarre (to us mainframers) things such as Classes, Objects, Constructors, Methods, Inheritance, and Polymorphism; and I am actually understanding what is going on. Even more shocking, it is fun!

I think the problem with all those other books was that they assumed the reader either knew something about Object Oriented programming, or knew nothing about any kind of programming. However, I think for some of us, when approaching OOP, knowing mainframe programming is worse than knowing nothing. This Java book clearly explains things in ways that we mainframe people can easily latch onto.

If you want to finally, successfully make the jump from legacy work to Object Oriented, this is your book.

This book has taught me more in the first 175 pages than the first 500 pages of most other Java books!! This is the only book I have seen which spends its entire first chapter providing step by step instructions for setting up a Java environment so that you can get started learning Java immediately. Topics that frustrate beginners and novices alike, including setting path variables, package creation, and using Sun's JAR utilities, are explained in such a way so that you spend your time developing your business applications and not being bogged down by minutiae.

The exercises are well thought out and present real examples of how to not only approach the development of Java applications, but also how to go about maintaining existing code - as a Java professional would.

The Murach approach to writing textbooks really pays off when applied to learning Java. Detailed, but concise paragraphs are featured on the left hand page, while bulleted items and useful screen captures populate the right hand page, including the step by step instructions and examples that will save you hours of head scratching and frantic page turning.

This is a fantastic book by Andrea Steelman, and another home run for Murach and Associates!

Given the fact that NO book can be comprehensive enough to teach everything, as well as the fact that it takes practice, practice and MORE practice writing code to become proficient, this book IS one of the finest I have seen in getting a person "ramped up" quickly. I initially purchased Sam's Teach Yourself Java 2 in 21 Days and found it to be convoluted, difficult to follow and full of inane examples that were not applicable to the "real world." Invariably I find that I get halfway through these books and give up, because they do not address my needs. I understand that it requires tremendous detail to understand ALL the theory behind the language, but that is not what I am looking for here. I can get that by augmenting my study with different source material (for example, Sun's tuturial on their web site (...) is extremely helpful, but it takes MONTHS to get through from beginning to end. This book is good because it allows one to be able to produce functional, practical programs in a relatively short period of time. It is a good entry point which can be enhanced as one pursues the subject in greater depth.

This book is well written, well organized, and includes real-world business examples which other java books tend to lack. The double page layout is extremely helpful when the book is used a reference later on. (Explanation on one page, example code on the other.) I really liked the fact that they include JDBC and other database connectivity examples. This is rare in most beginning books, but is essential to building serious business applications. After going through the exercises I finally feel comfortable with Java sytnax and Object Oriented programming. Andrea Steelman and Mike Murach have done an outstanding job with this book.

You want to learn the basics of the JAVA programming language and the object-oriented approach to programming (OOP)? This is the best book for you.

You teach the JAVA programming language, and you expect your students to have a good grasp of the assigned material BEFORE they come to class? This is the best text for your students.

The authors of the JDK 5 edition of Beginning JAVA 2 have taken the previous version of the book and brought it up to date. Once again we have them to thank for a well written, well organized, accurate introduction to JAVA and OOP.

If you are a new programmer and need the source code to check your work and to make sure that you are even on the right track, then this book is not for you. There is really no way to check your work because Murach's does not give out the source code. They only will do this if you pay approximately $1500 for the Instructors Kit & you must be an Instructor or Professor.

If you are somewhat comfortable with your programming skills and do not need to check your work then this book might be ok for you but there are many other good books on the market for proficient programmers.

I'm glad this book was our textbook for a four month Java course at our local technical college. As a student, I appreciated this book's very practical, "How to" approach to learning Java. The book's 2-page format put A clear, "How to" commentary on the left page along with illustrations, code, and tables on the right page. Exercises and projects follow the text. The instructor's package included Power-Points that mirrored the text, making it easy to follow. I especially appreciated how the author brought her insights as a working programmer to her commentary and selection of illustrations and projects. The CD-ROM enclosed with the text included SDK 1.4, Java API documentation for SDK 1.4, source code & data for all the examples and exercises in the book, and two different IDE's, TextPad (very cool little tool) and Sun's Forte...everything you need to learn by doing. I'm looking forward to studying Andrea Steelman's next book, Murach's Java Servlets and Jsps... just as soon as I pass my Java Programmer's exam!

On the front cover of this book it asks, "Know the basics?". I know the basics and my first questions when evaluating any beginning JAVA book is how do they handle GUIs and Threads. Scanning the table of contents I found "How to display a frame" and "How to close a frame".

In Chapter 11 on page 339 are two short classes that display the frame. On page 341 you add a few lines to the LoanCalculatorFrame class and you can close the frame. There is a mention of threads, but not a long explanation. At this point you just want to know how to display and close a frame. An extensive discussion of threads is left for Chapter 20. That little bit of information from Chapter 11 would have saved me hours when I was acquiring the "basics".

Another great time saver that I didn't think of is on page 28. "Why we don't recommend using an IDE when you're learning JAVA." I use IDEs all the time, so I started with Forte for JAVA. That means I was learning two languages at the same time. Not a good idea. Learn JAVA first before you take on Forte. This book is a great way to do that.

I used TextPad, included on the CD with the book, to edit, compile, and run the applications. That worked very well and is easy to learn.

My advice to students of programming languages is to write small programs and make them all work. I was able to do that with the samples in this book. I recommend keying the code from the book, not copying the code from the CD. Keying the code gives you a chance to learn to debug your inevitable typos and other errors. TextPad is a great help in debugging the code.

In Chapter 13 I encountered a problem it took me awhile to find. The Book Maintenance application in this chapter uses the binary file books.dat as a data source. All of the classes compile without error, but the application would not execute. I got a FileNotFound exception. The file was there, right where it should be. Why couldn't the application find it? I had copied the file from the CD. The copy had a read-only attribute so the application could not update the file. When I turned off the read-only attribute the application worked as expected. That is not the first time I have made that mistake. Each time I make it, it takes me less time to find and fix it.

Everything you need to run the applications in this book is on the CD that comes with it. It is a very effective learning tool. I highly recommend it.

First I would like to state that I am new to Java but not new to programming. I have a background in Visual Basic, VBScript and Oracle. I looked into Java about a year ago but was never able to find a good book or tutorial on the language. This book is it! I bought it a week ago and I am already writing useful programs "not toy!" I understand the syntax, the author does a GREAT JOB of explaining the terms and there are plenty of excellent examples! It starts with the basics and builds on each lesson in a clear and thought out lesson plan which by far is not boring at all! I am convinced that if I keep at this pace I will be a Junior/Entry-Level Java programmer in no time!

I had read one "21 day" book prior to this one and got lost in the pages, but this book is not only a learning tool, but a reference manual.

Thanks! Java World here I come!