Professional Java JDK 6 Edition

Courtesy of Blazej Ksycki from Szczecin JUG: Learning Java from scratch isn't very difficult, but if you want to know all the good practices it can take quite a big amount of time and effort. The book Professional Java JDK 6 Edition" is here to help us out. This book is very interesting and relates to quite a few issues. The first thing I found interesting were the differences between JDK 1.5 and JDK 1.6. Another subject is the design of web applications in two architecture models. This book also describes the basics of Enterprise Java Beans. Furthermore the reader will enter the world of many different, but very useful tools such as: Maven, TestNG or JMeter. Another very good chapter is about integrating Java and C++ using JNI (Java Native Interface). Everybody will find something interesting in this book. The number of problems this book is about is really impressive. But there is one thing missing - the J2ME technology. All the texts in the book are described very clearly and they have very good examples. These examples are very helpful and allow you understand the meaning of the book quicker. However since the book is about many aspects of Java an doesn't concentrate only on one subject, some of the issues were described a bit to briefly. Sometimes when you read this book you get a feeling that there is something that this chapter lacks. When this happens unfortunately you have to find another book which is more specialized than this book. At the end of the review you ask yourself one question - for who was this book written? The answer is frankly quite simple. For those people, who have some experience in Java and know the basic and now would like to continue their studies on Java, but don't know where to start their journey. Another group of readers that will the book useful are professional that would like to have some kind of quick reference guide. The book is really great and worth having but as for me it's a nice-to-have, but not a must-have. Still we have to remember that though this book is about different aspects of Java it won't replace a collection of more specialized books. But if had to give this book a grade it would be a B+, because of the drawbacks I mentioned above. However I think everyone should read this book - it's worth it!

The book provide really helpful for you if you are trying to know more about Java after you have done it. It provides a lot of examples for doing one thing in different ways.

We all have heard the saying that nothing is perfect. Well, it certainly is the case with this book. This book will not make you an expert in every single J2EE technology. Will give you a good introduction though! I thought the first couple of chapters on the new additions to Java Tiger were pretty solid. However, the chapters on Networking and Security were too shallow. No big deal though. Just buy Java Network Programming from Oreilly. Murach's Just Java 6th edition is a nice book to have in addition to this book. It touches the stuff that this one doesn't, and it misses the stuff that this book presents solidly. So, there you have it. Buy both, and you will get the best of both worlds. But whatever you do, do not even consider Herbert Schildt's 1.5 if you are a beginner.

As a long time C++ database application developer, I quickly picked up the concepts and ideas presented in the text. Excellent programming guide... particularly in chapter 11.

As a teacher of JAVA programming, I have seen countless books that I review for resources or potential classroom sets. This is by far the most complete, well written and informed book that I have seen thus far. It has been the "goto" book in our lab, and it is my top choice for textbook adoption in an advanced programming class.