Java by Example 1.2 [With CDROM]

I was working on a project, and used this book for understanding how different parts of the Java API work. Found it very helpful. I used the chapters on Collections classes, Reflection, Arrays, Memory and Constructors, and Interfaces as Types quite extensively. It's not a complete book in and of itself. You will still need a Java Language reference book. This book is more of a tutorial. It's great for self-learning.

Most reviewers here submitted bad reviews of this book. Some of them are right - still, they seem to have forgotten one thing: this book is definitely not meant for beginners - just as with Waite's Java 1.2 How-To. There some difference between the two books, though:+ some of the bigger examples of this book are definitely not trivial - I learnt a lot from the examples in the book. Waite's book, on the other hand, only had the Galaxians shoot'm'up that I really liked. + the quality of the text is much higher. This book isn't an exhaustive treatment of Java either, but at least it excels in a few areas: inner classes, collections and reflection. & #61623; That is, of you have to choose between the two books, go for the SunPress one. It can even be recommended as a third or fourth book - it's, after all, quite cheap and only contain few severe factual errors. On the other hand, there're entire areas that the book totally neglects (AWT / Swing / event handling is completely missing from the book). The book isn't really proofread / checked, it contains a lot of 1.1-references (classes.zip on page xxxiii, for example - the more severe errors will be mentioned later).Chapter 1: About Java. Introduction to JDK, compiling, running, HelloWorld as both an application and applet. p. 6 contains shows setting the CLASSPATH without = marks (quite a big mistake).Chapter 2: Beginning with a program. A line counter program: file, BufferedReader and reading each char - using readLine() would have been much better! Also explains all the Java issues the application uses - in one sentence (ecxeption handling, streams, boolean etc). Fortunately, later sections tend to be much more verbose.Chapter 3: The Java language Structure: Instance / static methods / variables, constructors, static initializators. Blocks, native, abstract and synchronized methods, packages. The example presented (a card playing game) is huge, definitely only for advanced, experienced programmers - later chapters always reference it. Introducing the inheritance is as of high quality as in Linden's book.p. 37: when discussing the protected modifier, forgets to mention that it's actually let's strict than the default visibility - only mentions subclasses (on p. 39 it's already OK).The C++ and even Smalltalk, Scheme remarks are great in the book.Chapter 4: Memory and Constructors: garbage collection etc; mentions there are no local (stack) objects; constructors; overloading them and default constructors; super/this - good explanation of the need for explicit super(). The app presented here multiplies very long numbers.Chapter 5: Interfaces as Types: a tree sort app: sorts lines from a file using a binary tree.Chapter 6: Arrays: ref. arrays, multidimensional arrays; mentions anon arrays (very few books do the same! - fails to mention that it's 1.1+ though).p. 105 contains a section that shouldn't have been included here. The authors try to put an object of a su

I found this book to be a useful reference. I wouldn't recommend it for someone wanting to learn the language from scratch, but if you are already an intermediate/experienced Java programmer (like myself) and want to learn about some of the more interesting Java features (reflection, inner classes, etc) then this book is good. You have to be willing to build upon the techniques shown here, but as it says on the back of the book, its not designed to teach Java programming.

This is a good book showing the C/C++ programmers how to learn java more easily and effectively. Takes a closer look at Java inner classes. All the fundamentals are dealt with good examples. Suggestable for beginners also.