Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Visual J++ in 21 Days (Teach Yourself in 21 Days)

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

 

 

Like most other books published by Sam's, Teach yourself Visual J++ in 21 days really lacks any learning value. Subjects are often incomplete, wordy or skip important explainations. In addition to it's lack of quality, this book has several mistypes or mistakes. I would not recommend this book even to an experienced OOP programmer wanting to get a grasp on J++.

RE:"Sams Teach Yourself CGI Programming in a week" clearly states on the back cover "takes you to the next step beyond simple HTML"

Having mastered HTML some time ago. Otherwise a novice re: programming languages. I find the above statement to be very deceptive and misleading.

In the first four chapters I learned that the author has great knowledge of assorted programming languages. It does NOTHING for the novice and clearly exceeds the next step up from simple HTML be any stretch of the imagination. By this buyer/aspiring programmers estimation, this book should be clearly targeting the skilled programmer in any one of the given languages mentioned in this book.

SUMMATION - This book was an unfortunate waste of over $ 26.00. $26.00 to some is obviously insignificant, To others it hurts. " OUCH "

Too much topics are not covered.I was disappointed by this book. Too much subject are tackled but not deeply. It is just an overview that takes 21 days.

Well, I was a little disappointed with this book. I've bought a few "Teach Yourself...in XX Days" books before and enjoyed them, but this one had a few too many mistakes in the code to be much useful. Almost every code listing in the book has a mistake in it.

The writer keeps declaring variables as one name and using different variables names further down in the examples. I found improper use of curly braces, and upon showing this to the publisher by email, he offered to refund me whatever I paid. He didn't respond when I took him up on it. Big surprise.

Finally after a couple of days into this book, I realized that all the errors in the text and example programs must be intentional. This was the authors way of testing to make sure you really understood the subject. By fixing all their errors, you learn much more than if you had a text that was accurate and factual. Seriously though, this was the worst programming book I have ever read. DON'T BUY THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO FIX THE EXAMPLE CODE, AND CHECK OTHER SOURCES TO RESOLVE INCONSISTENCIES AND ERRORS IN THE TEXT!!

This was the first Java book I bought. Once I realized that the book was incredibly buggy and that it wasn't me screwing something up, I was able to learn a small bit about Java (just because I had to go digging in another manual to find out why my applets didn't work after following the examples). In a nut shell, this book taught me how bad Visual J++ is. I was determine to stick with Microsoft products but I just couldn't stands no more.

All in all, I felt this to be a good investment, and Ive used it as a reference, which is saying a lot. As other reviewers have said, at times the source code could be better, but then one learns correcting other bugs, right? Good coverage of the basics and more advanced topics, such as inheritance, interfaces, packages, and OO development. In any case, this is an excellent into to Java and J++. The best book of its kind (Ive been burned by others). Id buy and advanced version by this author.

I'm not very happy with this book. I'm spending more time emailing for help than learning anything about Java or working with Visual J++. The software provided on the enclosed CD and the text's instructions parted ways by the middle of the first chapter. I can't finish an exercise without getting stuck and having to wait a couple of days for an answer to my questions. I'm about ready to return this thing to the bookstore from whence it came.

The book starts well, but you immediately find that the Technical Reviewer may have been more interested in how the authors' names were spelled than the accuracy of the content. The source code for the examples is missing from the CD except for Days 19, 20, and 21. If necessary, take a few days to check other books before investing the time in this tutorial. The Technical Reviewer, Greg Perry, says (on the back of the book) that this book is Guaranteed Timely & Accurate -- I hope that it was Timely