Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition

This review is less a review than an endorsement---unpaid. Regarding my credentials, I have written software for a (good) living for decades. Besides many books by others, I've read several of Mr. Schildt's books, from those in C in the last century to those in Java in this one. All of his have been outstanding. In the blurb on the back of one of his books, it states that Herbert Schildt is the world's best writer on programming languages. High praise indeed. But true!

When I needed to learn the Java programming language very quickly for work, I read many reviews and narrowed down my search to handful of few books. I looked at copies of my final possible choices in a local bookstore and finally purchased Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" and have absolutely no regrets. Along with this book, I realized that I would also need a more comprehensive reference book detailing the multitude of Java classes designed for many purposes. To this end, I chose Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition" not only for its extensive library, but also because of Herbert Schildt's wonderful writing that is easy to read and understand quickly.Herbert Schildt subdivided "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition" into four parts: tutorial, library, software development and applications. Part I (the first 346 pages) is a Java tutorial, organized similarly to Herbert Schildt's other book that I purchased, "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition". However, the tutorial in this book is more condensed than in the guide, which has over 500 pages. Some readers may find the condensed approach in this book sufficient to learn the language, but if you want more comprehensive tutorial explanations, the guide is good companion.Part II (the next 539 pages) is an extensive library detailing most of Java's built-in classes dealing with everything from string handling, collections, utility classes, console I/O, file I/O, networking, applets, event handling (mouse movements, button use, and other interactive GUI objects), the AWT (Abstract Window Toolkit), images and other I/O types including Regular Expressions. Part III (the next 128 pages) provides some information about Java Beans, Swing, Servlets and a helpful guide for migrating from C++ to Java. Part IV (the next 123 pages) shows Java in action with four example applications.Overall, I rate Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition" with 5 out of 5 stars. It has become a constant companion as I learn and work with Java.

This book is perfect for beginners, the first part is great,i really couldn't understand well the threads and IO part, but it was great in applets. A very organized book, wonderful way of explanation.This book is 3 in one, it explains, it gives you codes and examples, and at the same time it works as a perfect reference book!!

I've been "in the trenches" going from COBOL to Java during the past few months, and I've finally found the book that I should have started with in the first place. I began with the Core Java Fundamentals book (Horstman - Cornell) and wasted a lot of time. The Core Java book spends an inordinate amount of effort trying to relate everything to C++ and VB programmers, and it IS supposed to be a beginners book. The Complete Reference is chock full of great code examples which are used as building blocks to some of the more difficult concepts, such as inner classes or inheritance. I'm getting ready to take the Java exam now and am using this book as my predominate study guide. As was noted by an earlier reviewer, I also had part of the binding come apart within about three days after purchasing the book. I'll return it and get a new copy. BTW, the O'Reilly Java in a Nutshell book works great as a quick reference.

Its realy good book to start java learning.Cover practically all aspects of java.Advanced topics are not explained in full particularly JDBC and Beans.Examples required more simplicity.Otherwise great book.