Professional Java Programming [Paperback]

Brett Spell (Author), George Gongo (Author)

Book Description

Series: Programmer to Programmer | Publication Date: January 2000

Java has developed into a robust, and dynamic general purpose programming language, which has proved itself to be adaptable, extensible and well suited to a range of development environments. This book is about improving your core Java programming skills and learning how to create professional Java applications.

Every Java developer, whatever their speciality, wants to expand their Java knowledge and expertise. Over the course of this book, you'll discover the particulars of working with the Java language and APIs to develop applications in many different contexts - as well as delving into more advanced topics such as XML data exchange, or the Swing graphical user interface. By the end of the book you'll be fully prepared to take advantage of the ease of development Java offers, and able to create powerful and sophisticated Java applications.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

After you've learned some basic Java, what comes next? Brett Spell's Professional Java Programming can bring your skills to a new level with this tutorial on an appealing range of advanced topics that will extend the reach of your applications. This topic-based text offers something for every intermediate-to-advanced Java developer.

By focusing on individual advanced topics, you can use this book to solve real-world problems while generally improving your understanding of Java. A valuable early section examines what methods you should implement for your Java classes. (By implementing these method, your classes can be as robust and flexible as those that are built into Java.) A section on multithreading shows you the right way to create threads that run reliably in the background.

If you use a Java IDE for designing user interfaces, you probably won't find much use for sections on event handling and layouts, which are covered here in considerable depth. (The reason is that today's Java tools automate this aspect of UI design.) However, two chapters on advanced Swing controls--the JTable and JTree components--are simply indispensable. (You learn how to perform custom rendering, as well as edit the contents of these controls. The controls are powerful, but in general it's hard to find any information on customizing them.)

If you want your Java application to mimic the functionality of traditional applications, you'll benefit from the chapters on adding cut and paste and drag-and-drop functionality, as well as printing. A group of chapters will extend the range of Java when working with data, whether through JDBC, standard streams, XML or sockets, CORBA, or Remote Method Invocation (RMI). (The author uses a chat server to illustrate basic distributed computing.) The book closes with some valuable tips on Java security, help systems, performance tuning, and internationalization.

All in all, Professional Java offers a mixed bag of tips and tricks for extending the range of your Java applications, whether on a single desktop or across the enterprise. Even if you don't read it cover to cover, this text offers plenty of invaluable tips and solutions that will benefit any working Java developer. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Java Virtual Machine (JVM) details
• Best practices for designing Java classes (recommended methods)
• Using Java threads effectively (including synchronization techniques and thread APIs)
• Java event handling (comprehensive guide to Java events)
• Layout managers (including custom layout managers)
• Advanced techniques for using Swing JTable and JTree (including customer rendering and editing)
• Advanced JFC desktop functionality (adding cut and paste and drag-and-drop support)
• Printing with Java 2
• Creating custom user interface components
• JDBC 2.0 database programming (including new 2.0 features, transactions, and connection pooling)
• Persisting data to I/O streams, files, and databases (including basic object relational mappings)
• XML basics in Java
• Guide to using JavaSoft's Java API for XML Parsing (JAXP)
• Transforming XML documents
• Basics of socket programming, CORBA, and Remote Method Invocation (RMI)
• The Java security model (understanding permissions and digital signatures)
• Profiling for improved Java performance, the HotSpot compiler, garbage collection, and creating Javadoc help and context-sensitive help with JavaHelp
• Internationalizaton support in Java
• Native code and the Java Native Interface (JNI)
• Reference for coding standards

From the Publisher

This book is for anyone who wants to know more about Java, whether you've just found your way onto the Java platform or you've been using the language for a while. For those with only a small amount of experience, this book provides a comprehensive guide to the finer points of how to get the most out of Java 2; for the more experienced reader, this book will help you to use the more advanced techniques you've come across.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1111 pages
• Publisher: Peer Information; 1 edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 186100382X
• ISBN-13: 978-1861003829
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,631,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good coverage of many Java topics, January 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Professional Java Programming (Paperback)

As its generic title implies, this book doesn't really focus on a single Java topic. Instead, it covers many different topics, most of which area relatively advanced, and does a decent job with almost all of them. Some of the chapters were on topics that are pretty basic, such as event handling and layout managers, but even in those areas I found lots of useful tips and tricks.

My one complaint is that some of the examples were a bit contrived. On the other hand, the code samples were extremely clear and easy to understand, and I suppose that there's a tradeoff there between realism and simplicity. That's why I'm still giving this book five stars -- because even if the examples weren't "realistic", they were at least effective.

Since the topics are largely unrelated to one another (with the obvious exception that they're all relevant to Java programmers), this isn't a book that I'd recommend someone read from cover-to-cover. However, I do consider it a very good reference for most of the subjects that it covers, and a good starting point for the remainder.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't be scared off by the 'professional' title, February 11, 2001

By 

"tjohnson1029" (Battle Creek, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Java Programming (Paperback)

I think I have a good understanding of basics of Java, but I almost didn't buy this title because I'm still pretty new to the language. But I got it because I needed to do printing and with Java 1.3 and was very pleasantly surprised with this book. It is very well written with lots of clear example code and with minimal 'jargon'. I haven't read the whole thing yet but I really found the printing chapter clear and easy to understand and I was able to use some of the code unmodified inside my application and some other with very little change. I also have been able to have some questions answered about JTABLE that I had before by flipping to the section in the table chapter of this book. So far its been a really good reference book for me and has chapters on a lot of other things that I will need to know about. Alot of times I'm disappointed with the quality of writing in the programming books I buy but this author is really good at making things simple and clear. Another thing I like about this book is that it covers both client and server topics (but no jsp or servlet info - just stuff like threading and distributed programming etc.) so it isnt limited to just one area of Java.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A big book that's packed full of useful material, February 12, 2001

By 

Mark Mitchell (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Professional Java Programming (Paperback)

Many titles focus on a single title, and they often seem to be packed full of material that's marginally useful at best and irrelevant at works. In contrast, this one tackles a large number of topics that many Java programmers will need to know about, and for the most part, it manages to cover those topics in more than enough depth to allow the reader to really understand and use the Java technologies that it covers. However, it doesn't just examine those technologies from an academic perspective, but includes lots of clear examples and code that could be very useful. In some cases, the code is appropriate for use directly within an application, while in other cases, utility programs are included that help the reader to understand or use the technology better. The best example of this latter case that comes to mind is in the chapter on layout managers, where the author provides a really useful utility program that makes it easy to play with GridBagLayout and see how modifying the various constraints affects the components within the layout. In that same chapter, he also describes how to create a custom layout manager (it turned out to be easier than I expected) and provides an example of one that's actually pretty useful, at least in the scenario described.   The areas where I felt this book was weak were in the chapters on object-oriented design and distributed objects. While those chapters were ok and easy to understand, they don't provide a great deal of depth, and if you want to know more on those subjects, you should probably look elsewhere, although this book might be a good starting point for a beginner. Overall, though, the chapters provided plenty of depth, and I consider this a really outstanding book. It took me a while to finish it, but it was definitely worth the effort, and I'd recommend it to anyone who has advanced beyond the most basic levels of Java programming.