Customer Reviews

Real World Java 2 with CDROM (Java Masters)

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

 

 

After a 4 day Java class along with having 8 years programming experience, I was looking for a book to help me develop a client/server (maybe using an applet) Java application. I have the basic framework down but wanted to fill it out and make sure I didn't hit a submerged snag, so to speak. The book starts out with a good basic explanation of networking concepts but I began to part ways with the author when he starts showing his examples. Having done a bank account server/atm application in class, I was curious to see how he would do the same thing. The chapter about serialization should have been covered first because this makes the communication between server and client much simpler. You just make a transaction class which is serializable and inside that you have room for transaction type, amounts and return codes. The bank account example is also used to show some other networking concepts (UDP and multicasting) which I think were a poor match. He should have used something more like a time/temperature server, which might make more sense. His use of a thread to do constant interest calculation just made me keep thinking 'why?' instead of going through the code. His use of threads for connections are more realistic. The examples are ok but they are split out with some code fragments being on a greyed background and others just plain black letters on a white page. The ones on grey are overly commented for a book. One fragment had 3-4 lines of code on the whole page with the reminder being comments. I like comments as much as the next guy but I can do without them in a book. The book comes with a CD-ROM with all the code which is the appropriate place for full comments. He didn't spend to much time explaining the use of some certain techniques, like RMI, but just dug right in. Take that as you will. I did like the section which showed how to write a chat/whiteboard client for multiple users using the shared library(Java Shared Data Toolkit). I also liked the chapter that implements a minor telnet client, I wish he had gone on to implement the server side. In that chapter is a fairly extensive list of the Telnet RFCs. He does a fairly good job of bringing up production type issues all throughout the text, for example, "How well would this technique scale to a web site with thousands of simultaneous users?" and then discusses possible approaches. I might use it as a reference but I wouldn't recommend it to learn how to do networking in Java for a beginner.

I am always amused by pathetic technical books but this one has got to take the cake. Well done.

for those of us who are slightly beyond (and tired of) the comparisons between C++ and Java, this book presents scarcely any useful information at all. i also agree with the reviewer who believed that the author wrote with no personality - a tip to the author: try to limit the star trek jokes for the conventions - they would be appreciated more over there.

to the potential readers: try another book.

in the advanced chapters you can find some good technical stuff. However, the book is not clear and does not contain any special insights. Also it has some small technical mistakes, for example it says that threads that were instantiated using a Runnable cannot be restarted(which is not true -try for yourself). My advice is to spend your time reading a really good book on networking (like Java notwork programming by Merlin Hughes and co) and find specific technicalities in the web.

This is a good overall treatment of all the different types of problems one will need to solve when doing network programming.

It clearly explains the difference between the different socket types the pitfalls of each and goes on into more detailed examples on the more complicated topics like the JSDT.

Definately found a place on my bookshelf. I did by this right when Java 2 came out. It was the best Java 2 networking book at the time, there might be better ones now, but this one got me going enought to not need to look anymore.

I had a basic java networking background, and was hoping to learn some advanced tricks or inspiring ideas. Not in this book. Author doesn't write with much personality either. I'm gonna look for a better book on networking.