Customer Reviews

Programming with VisualAge for Java 2 (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I found this to be a very good book. I had used the product for a couple of months and gone throught the online samples.. From this perspective it leads you VERY well into further development. I was very pleased with the breadth of information provided. Unfortunately, debug is not handled real well and you will not get a real good knowledge of JAVA. On the positive side with the exception of the debugger you get a very good understanding of this powerful IBM application development product.

Book is well organized. It covers most of the features. The examples are easy to follow. Easy to read. However it only covers features in the Professional Edition as the preface mentioned. Would've been better if it covered a little more advanced topics like visual servlets, cookies etc... Overal is good for learning but not for the advanced. I think I learned a lot from the book which has prepared me for the next level.

Whenever I see a book that has the product name as part of the title and is not preceded with the words "advanced" or "intermediary" then I am led to believe that it will provide an broad introductory prospective to the product. I was dead wrong with this particular book. It reads like it was written in a weekend with each topic hastily reviewed with a major emphasis on scantily provided detail combined with large font types to give the visual appearance of an impressive body of work. Don't be fooled, this book is not worth the effort. You would be better served using the Visualage for Java help panels than attempting to apply any of the aspects of this book.

The book comes with VisualAge for Java pro version 2, which was a surprise. The book contains good information, but learning Java from the book is not easy, and is made more difficult by errors. Even as you start the very first project, a figure is misnumbered in the text, making even starting the software confusing. The authors would have been well-served by having someone use or proofread the book by going through the examples, figures, and directions to comment on their usability before publication.

I am not sure this is one of the worst books I have seen on using an IDE, but it must be on the top of that dubious list. The authors should have called the book: Do This Enter That. There is hardly any material explaining what your doing, no overviews, just a flat out lousy book, can't damn it enough. Save your money and buy any other book unless you like endless typing and no explanations. The material is presented in such an uninteresting manner that one needs motivation of heroic proportions: dose up on Steven Seagal movies and no doze, or better yet just pass this book.

The book is full of typo's and the authors are impossible to reach. Hardly any explanation during the exercises, just instructions. A better book for the beginner is "Enterprise Development with VisualAge for Java, version 3," by Nilsson et al.

My main problem with this book is the fact that you are taken step by step throught the development process but with no explainations of why you are doing the step. They aren't teaching...its more like rote repitition. On top of this, there are several critical typos and since you don't know the what and whys, they are that much harder to uncover. This could have been a great tutorial if IBM didn't assume it was writting to super-techies. Next time guys...EXPLAIN THE STEPS!

While the book does contain some small contextual errors, the code seems to work fine, and the applications depicted in the exercises require the use of all pertinent features.

Visual Age for Java is a powerful and complex development environment. I thought I knew it pretty until I read this book. The exercises are understandable yet challanging and detailed. I'm ready to start coding and using this tool as a true professional.

IBM really needs to get some more up to date books out there for newer versions of VisualAge. This book was a terrible reference and terrible at teaching VisualAge. I finally gave up and just learned through trial and error.

The book is full of typo's and the authors are impossible to reach. Hardly any explanation during the exercises, just instructions. A better book for the beginner is "Enterprise Development with VisualAge for Java, version 3," by Nilsson et al.