Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Java 1.1 Programming in 24 Hours (Teach Yourself in 24 Hours)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

By "great leap" flaw I mean that in every programming book supposedly aimed at non-programmers I've seen, there comes a point where the author, who previously has reasonably explained each new concept, makes a great leap into the unknown. In this book, the great leap comes in Chapter 9 "Storing Information with Arrays." In an explanation of some lines in the first (unneccessarily complicated) array the author has this to say: "The numeric values of the alphabet range from 65 for 'A' to 90 for 'Z.'" The author never bothers to explain why the hell this is so: either the author supposes that the reader knows just why it is that A has been given a value of 65, or expects the reader to simply accept it without question. Very irritating. Is a brief explanation of character sets too much to ask?

I should point out that this book is better than most. Typically the great leap occurs in the 3rd chapter, as it did in the Peachpit Press Quick Start Guide to JavaScript.

I enjoyed the first several chapters a great deal, as the author tried hard to use analogies and sometimes humor to present points. But when I got around to Chapter 11, the analogy became extremely confusing ("writing a virus") and it was very difficult distinguishing what was analogy and what was literal. I quit reading the book after giving up on the chapter. The author was friendly enough to write me back, but didn't understand that the problem was not in trying to learn object oriented programming but rather in figuring out what was meant while using these silly analogies.

The explainations is very clear; in fact the readability is very high. However, I found that there are not enough exercises to do, so I have some problem in practicing what I have learnt from this book.

Rogers Cadenhead's writing style is a perfect mix between humourous and technical; this would be the first reason I completely enjoyed the book. Teach Yourself Java 1.1 Programming in 24 Hours keeps the reader *thinking*, which is one of the more necessary aspects, in my opinion, when writing any book on self-taught subjects. Needless to say, the book found itself finished within a week.

For those that are completely new to the programming world in general, the mix of humour and techni-jargon offers a gentle introduction to Java programming. For myself, already involved with C++, Python, and Perl, the book was something to look forward to ... I ended up enjoying each lesson and modifying the activities a little further.

The quizzes at the end of each chapter were small reminders that learning should be fun; the activities were something that helped develop a better sense of what each chapter was about. Each workshop, usually located toward the end of the chapter, demonstrated a complete, working Java application, or applet, that the student could compile and test, another benefit that the potential student should experiment with.

Teach Yourself Java 1.1 Programming in 24 Hours, as a whole, is a well-written, well-planned book. Each chapter within the book, while not being as thorough as some would like, offers the reader a glimpse into the various aspects of Java programming. Add a tablet of web-supplement, in the form of the author's website, and the reader will find all the errata released regarding the book, as well as a needed break to let concepts settle properly.

If you want to learn Java but have never programmed before, this is THE place to start.

I went through a couple of other books on Java but wasn't getting anywhere. After reading this book, I feel like I'll be able to go back through those other books with a better understanding of the basics.

It was an excellent resource for non programmers. I found it to
be comprhensive and systematic in it's approach. It was delivered
to me in good condition and on time.

I happpened to come across this book at a thrift store for $0.50. I did learn a bit from it but it was hard to grasp what it was saying. Didn't actually finish the book. It covered some topics well but covered others pretty weak. Didn'y explain the example programs clearly all the time. Does have some good info. Didn't explain clearly where to compile the programs and where to save the examples. Had to figure that part out with some further internet reasearch. Several of the examples had errors when compiled (I redviewed the example in the book with what i typed in the computer line by line and still there were errors when compiled. Was able to fix and modify a few of them.) My overall recommendation is to find a different book to learn from.

Very few people make quality teachers. I would fail most people who write educational books and who teach in our schools at every level, because they aren't thorough enough to take the lead. Mr. Cadenhead also fails to follow through for the beginner student in a clear logical sequence of instructions. He says you can use any editor to create ".java" suffixed program files, but some editors append ".txt" and java programs won't run that way. He's also too vague about where to place the program files so the java system can find them. He has a good sense of humor in "Teach Yourself...", but there are probably better choices for the beginner who needs to be taught.

I have read this book till' chapter 13, and I don't know if inherit method will do what, or that virus program in object oriented proggraming, I am gonna finish it, but better get just Java 1.2

I'm an experienced programmer looking to learn Java. This book is okay and I finished it pretty quickly but when I finished it I felt that, while I could write a simple (what else?) calculator, I should immediately go out and buy another book to really learn Java. I can only speak as an experienced programmer -- perhaps this is just the thing for non-programmers. For me, though, it's another trip through Amazon.com's list of Java books to see what book(s) I need to buy now.