Java 2 Bible

Coming from a programmer experienced in other languages, I thought the pace and depth of this book were perfect. It helped me pick up java and after reading it cover-to-cover, I'm now coding java apps for a living.It's not going to be the only book on java technologies I ever read, but it makes a great first book on java technology.

As an experienced C programmer I have to say that this bookis a great introduction to Java 2 but it is not forbeginners from my experience. The chapers are written in afriendly way that makes them easy enough to understand, butafter the first section that covers getting up to speed withJava in general, Object Oriented Programming concepts, etcyou REALLY have be a programmer to absorb the concepts andexamples.Starting with chapter 6 the authors take off the kid gloves.This particular section was the most complex part of thebook for me, and I found it easier to skim through thiscollection of chapters lightly at first and then revistthese topics later once I got into the other more hands-onparts of the book (such as input/output, creating graphicaluser interfaces, and networking, etc): plan to make twopasses on the "middle" chapters if you want to memorize themby heart.Because the Java language is covered in such detail I foundthis book to be a good desk reference for fundamentalconcepts, making it a good book for C programmers like mewho want to learn Java, especially when combined with thefree online API specifications. Overall I give it four outof five stars. Between the book itself and the free onlinesupport site it was defintely worth the $$ since I bought itused, but be warned it's not for beginners!

I'm glad that I got this book as my first Java programming book. It was just what I needed to get up and going with Java development. The writing style is approachable and interesting, not just some technical manual for hard-core programmers, which helped me to make sense of the subject matter. I especially liked the introduction to object oriented programming, since I didn't have any exposure to OOP before. I found the "nuts and bolts" section of the book to be a good reference, but it didn't have the same amount of example code and programs that the other sections had (I'd recommend that the authors consider adding more examples and code to that section in the future since that would help with this part a lot). I also found that there was a lot of Java covered that I didn't need. I will probably never use Java and databases, for instance, so that chapter wasn't of any use to me although it's good to know that it's there if I ever do need it down the road. I also found the free online version of the original Java Bible very valuable since I wanted to learn how to program Java applets that all browsers could run, so having that plus the printed version of the Java 2 Bible was like getting two books for the price of one. Overall I found this to be an excellent first book for me, and would recommend it to others just getting started with Java and Java 2.

I am still learning to program in java. At present time Java is an up and coming superstar... If you are a C++ programmer you had better get some Java experience. Java takes all the pain in the rear stuff out of programming, such as pointers. I hate pointers and Java doesn't use them really. I love Java security and reliability. I think this book is a good buy for the novice, and I would have given it a 5 star rating, but it should cover Swing, and JSP a little more.

I have heard much about Java, about how good it is, about how it speeds up your server and all the like. I've been a web developer for 3 years now but haven't had to use it.Now I'm working on a system with over 100,000 users and Java is really helping out! Things have sped up so much now that we are moving to Java.This book has helped me to learn the basics and some of the more complex sides of Java. A great book indeed.