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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Systematic, Excellent Introduction to Java, April 4, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Who's Afraid of Java? (Paperback)
I had never programmed in my life and hardly understood computer terminology beyond what a "byte" was. Out of curiousity, I recently dabbled into programming and chose java for a start. Among the few books I bought was "Teach yourself Java in 21 days" (TYJ), and "Who's afraid of Java". I spent two months painfully grinding through TYJ. For a complete novice, I felt my brain almost cracking in half! Maybe I'm just a little slow but I needed a book that would hold me by the hand and systematically guide me through the mysteries of not just the java language, but some fundamentals of how the computer in general works. Steve Heller's "Who's Afraid of Java" did just that! More importantly, from chapter to chapter, he uses a real life application of programming as its examples. He continuously builds on the same programming problem, increasing the functionality of the written program as more terms are introduced and explained. This is a markedly different approach from most programming books which give completely different examples when a new term is introduced, sometimes making it hard to properly grasp the subject without a few sleepless nights! To cap it all, the book takes a conversational approach with a novice. This book is a MUST to the beginner (and to the intermediate programmer who may wish to brush up on some fundamental facts). "Teach yourself java in 21 days" became so much easier to read after reading this book. Thanks, Steve Heller!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book for novice programmers!, February 8, 1999
This review is from: Who's Afraid of Java? (Paperback)
I bought this book because I was adviced from the school that it would be wise to learn something about java before the school started - because about 50% of the students didn't make it through the first 2 semesters - and mainly because of programming (java and c++). At school start they throwed classes, objects and inheretence at us without even introducing us to the fundamentals of java. I full heartly recommend this book to anyone new to programming, and to anyone that have tried to learn it, but felt insecure about it. Here you don't have to read, or guess, what's behind the lines of the pages. Steve Heller explains what's going on behind, and he does it in a way that makes it easy to understand. Some authors seems to be experts in making even the easiest thing difficult to understand. Not Steve Heller. He really has the gift of explaining things in a way that they are easy to understand. - Though it only teaches about 10% of the java language - it is the important 10%, and it establish a good foundation for further studies of the java language. I highly recommend this book. Now we only need more advanced java from Steve Heller.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book for anyone who wants to learn Java !, October 11, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Who's Afraid of Java? (Paperback)
This is an great book.. I have read many others like "Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days" ... I thought that book was terrible, a very misleading title... Of course, I may think differently of it after I read "Who's Afraid of Java"... "Who's Afraid of Java" was excellent! It is the only book I have seen that was designed for people who wanted to learn Java without any previous programming language. I am only 16 years old, and have never programmed in any other language before. I find this book very easy to understand, and I think others can too... I also like the way he adds the conversations him and his wife had in the book. She asks a lot of questions I would of asked if the author was infront of me... He uses many examples, and gives a detialed analysis of how they work. He also talks about the "insides" of computers and how they transfer information. He talks about everything in here ! well... almost everything... GET THIS BOOK IF YOU WANT TO LEARN JAVA !
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