Customer Reviews

Programming Java 2 Micro Edition for Symbian OS: A developer's guide to MIDP 2.0 (Symbian Press)

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

 

 

Haven't read the whole book since I already knew MIDP 1.0, and the only reason I bought this one was that at the time I bought it was the only book I could find on MIDP 2.0. This rating will only be based on the more advanced stuff (APIs in MIDP 2.0). The author spend a lot of time talking about you can do with MIDP 2.0 and how to code some different applications which I think is covered pretty well. However, the applications I have looked at does not work. There are even classes that are missing, as well as other errors in the examples. I don't think anyone learning java wants to deal with this. "Teach yourself java with J2ME in 21 days" is a very good book if you know a little bit of programming, but are new to j2me.

This book is more like a standards specification. The author goes on and on in circles without getting to the heart of the matter quickly. For example the first example, is discussed after 50 pages of boring presentation. And yet, the example is not a simple smooth starting point. No, it's a simple game !

I really and truly regret the money I wasted on this book.

Fives stars is a rating I've only given to Endless Summer. This book is an extensive volume on J2ME MIDP 2 and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in MIDP 2 development. Less than a fifth of the book focuses exclusively on Symbian but the detailed contextual API info adds significant value over some other books I've reviewed on J2ME that don't cover optional packages or simply 'mention' less-used packages without explaining how they are used. It would only be perfect if it were a bit more thorough covering more packages in greater detail- but that's what Sun's specs are for anyway. Enjoy.