Customer Reviews

Wireless Java : Developing with Java 2, Micro Edition

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just got the pleasure of finishing this book. After just two days of reading I wrote my first MIDLet. Using a Servlet and a MIDLet I created an app that runs on a cell phone. I mean how cool is that.

And Jonathan's writing style makes it very easy to understand and to read. No rereading over pages because you couldn't understand what you just read.

If you are a Java programmer, as that is one requirement, that you know how to program in Java already, and you want to write apps for PDAs and Cell Phones, then this is the book to buy.

This book is excellent. I wish many more books were like this one. I cannot express how much I enjoyed this book. There are just too many books out there that are just flashy, bulky, in-your-face, and just bloated with fluff. Not this book.

First of all, this book assumes that you know Java. That is rule 1 that many books fail to observe. This book is about wireless Java so it does not waste space teaching you Java. If you want to learn Java, you'll read a book that is written specifically for that - and you'll likely find a great one too. So why redo it in a way that will suffer anyway?

Second, this book gives you useful information, and only useful information. No space is wasted. Every chapter is concise, to the point, and specific. I've never read a book with such a high percentage of useful information. I'll gladly pay about the same price for a 200-page book with 190 useful pages instead of a 1000-page book with 90 useful pages. The presentation is clean, clear, and consistent.

Third, well, the topic is wireless Java, so I'll also tell you that I picked up this book knowing Java but not J2ME, and after reading it I know everything I need to know to writing Java programs using J2ME. I've looked at all the Java wireless books and I truly believe that this is the best one. You'll learn about how J2ME is partitioned, how MIDP fits into CLDC, what parts of J2SE are included and left out, how to write MIDlets and user interfaces, how to work with persistent storage (micro-databases), networking, performance optimization, XML, and security.

The author and his team (because a book does not come to exist by only one person) should be applauded for boldly going against the trend of selling books by weight.

One last note: this is the ONLY book for which I thought even the appendix was useful!

Enjoy it and enjoy trying out J2ME.

After reading the first edition of Knudsen's book, I was able to successfully write a J2ME application that is now being distributed by major cellular service providers. I had no prior experience with J2ME and gained all of my knowledge from that book.

I picked up the second edition as soon as it came out and was extremely pleased with the new information presented. It is a "must have" for anyone interested in learning J2ME in general or J2ME programmers looking to work with MIDP 2.0.

Knudsen explains programming in a clear, thorough manner. The few questions that I could not find answers to in his book (and there were definately only a few), I was able to e-mail the author and received quick, detailed responses.

I am commenting on the First Edition of this book.

I own two books on introductory J2ME development in a CLDC/MIDP environment: this is the better of the two. Mr. Knudsen writes well (no silly jokes or other distracting nonsense), and covers the core material one needs to begin programming MIDlets.

Chapter 12 in the first edition is extremely useful, wherein the practical use of message digests on the client side are illustrated.

All in all, a good book for the bookshelf, and one I recommend to friends interested in J2ME CLDC/MIDP programming.

This book is a pleasure to read. The style is concise but clear,
the code clean and simple, and compile and works perfectly.
Besides you will have clear, detailed explanation (not only directives or instructions) on how to compile and run it.
As and added bonus, the books uses mainly Ant for building the examples so you can integrated this new knowledge nicely using the tools you should be using for your usual development projects in Java. I give it only 4 stars because the book title should be INTRO to J2ME development as the coverage is broad (forms, networking, persistent storage, evena nice chapter on games!) but not terribly deep in any area. But if you are new to J2ME and hate wading through the docs buy this book and you will not regret it!
The price is reasonable, too.

Two years ago, Jonathan Knudsen released the first edition of this book. At the time I said it was an "excellent book". Knudsen continues to keep his title of "Author of the best intro to J2ME book" with the release of the second edition of his book. About double in size and completely rewritten for the latest release of J2ME, Knudsen has once again written an excellent book.

The book is about writing MIDlets and the first three chapters are an introduction to the topic. Chapter four shows how to leverage your knowledge of J2SE into the MIDlet world, showing which language features of J2SE are available to the MIDlet author. The next few chapters discuss developing a user interface, using persistent storage, connecting to the internet, performance tuning, parsing XML, and securing information. New chapters demonstrating how to use the new game API and the new multimedia extensions have been added to the book.

As always, Knudsen's writing style is perfect. You won't find yourself re-reading paragraphs because the author's language was confusing or because he failed to explain a topic clearly. Each chapter is full of examples that help to make the topic under discussion more easily understood. If you are an intermediate to advanced Java programmer looking to learn how to make cell phones and PDAs learn some new tricks then this book is exactly what you want.

This is a truely excellent book. Having done quite some hands-on work in the area and read all 4 books that are out to date, this is definitely my favourite.

The author is precise and to the point. No 100-page long Java introduction for complete newbies, no eruptions on J2ME history.

Instead Knudsen assumes the reader is mature and quickly focuses on the topics that really matter: how do the components fit together, what do I need to quickly get going, how do I create user interfaces, how handle persistant storage and network connectivity. In addition he covers advanced topics such as performance tuning, security and XML.

All drawings are clear, the print well readable and most importantly in times of information overkill, the author manages to package everything vital into no more than 200 pages.

Way to go!

The latest revolution in Java (the micro revolution) has begun within the release of J2ME. However, the revolution has just started and most of the specification is still being defined within the Java Community Process. The one part of J2ME that is available to developers is the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP), the specification for devices such as pagers, mobile phones, and small PDAs. This is the focus of this excellent book by Jonathan Knudsen. After a brief history of J2ME, the author introduces us to MIDlets, which are the applets of Mobile Information Devices. Comparing J2ME with J2SE, the author shows us how to leverage our Java skills to make coding for MIDP devices a breeze. Each step of the way, the author uses working code examples to demonstrate the capabilities of MIDlets. Starting with developing forms, the author explains how to interact with the user and code event handlers. He then demonstrates how to interact with servlets over the Internet using HTTP. Maintaining persistent storage, handling cookies, and programming a game interface are all demonstrated. Performance tuning, which is a critical issue on MIDP devices, is discussed. As long as we are going to be on the cutting edge, a chapter on XML is included. Security and cryptography are critical issues on MIDP devices. Knudsen is the author of "Java Cryptography" and as expected he does an excellent job with these topics. All of this information is well covered in a concise 175 pages. (...)

This is an excellent book. The author does an outstanding job of setting the context by describing the types of devices covered by J2ME and showing the structure of the overall J2ME API. Then he carefully focuses in on the MIDP, the subject of the book, with clear explanations.

This book is not for Java newbies. Knudsen assumes you're already pretty familiar with the core Java classes from J2SE and highlights only the differences that are found in J2ME.

You'll get more out of the book if you take the time to read his sample code and understand how it works. It won't take long (a half hour per sample), and it's well worth the effort.

I read the first edition of this book. John did a great job on that book. The second edition is even better. The second edition has tons of code. This book is easy to read. You need to be an experienced developer to work with J2ME. I would recommand this book to anyone who wants to learn J2ME. This book is a smart investment.