Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner Reviews

Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner

  • ISBN13: 9781598632750
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Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner provides you with an introduction to Java that allows you to learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming while becoming acquainted with many of the core features of Java. This book starts with the assumption that you have not previously written a computer program. It then walks you through the creation of a variety of games and applications. After you have your footing with the basics, you learn to develop your own systems of classes, and by t

Rating: (out of 7 reviews)

List Price: $ 29.99

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Effective Java: Programming Language Guide (Java Series)

(Pearson Education) Working solutions to programming challenges faced by Java developers on a daily basis, revealing what to do to produce clear, robust and efficient code. Include rules in short essay form, and the author’s ‘war stories,’ giving advice and insights into nuances of the language. Softcover. Written for the working Java developer, Joshua Bloch’s Effective Java Programming Language Guide provides a truly useful set of over 50 best practices and tips for writing better Java

Rating: (out of 122 reviews)

List Price: $ 54.99

Price: $ 3.93

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11 thoughts on “Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner Reviews

  1. Review by John Matlock for Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner Rating: This is a book oriented to the complete beginner. It basically starts with a blank sheet of paper and begins with a simple applet that just outputs a single line of text to the screen.

    From here he goes on to provide a very simply step by step tutorial to cover the fundamental rules of Java. In this book he doesn’t get everything there is to know about Java. It’s an introductory book, it covers the bases of the language well enough to get you started. You will probably want an additional book before you become the local master.

    If I have one complaint about the book it is one that I complain about a lot on Java books. On page 5 he starts talking about object oriented programming. And he talks on for two or three pages. Then he skips saying anything more about object oriented programming for about 160 pages. By then the reader has completely forgotten about the few pages on page 5.

  2. Review by John R. Donoghue for Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner Rating: This book misses the entire point of the “… for the Absolute Beginner” series. The premise is to ease beginners into a programming language by using games and game-programming. Dring the course of programming increasingly complex games, the reader gets masters the basics of the language. The book fails to deliver on that promise.

    The games featured on the cover aren’t programmed. In fact, the book teaches a very small subset of of the Java language.

    Instead, the author wastes the reader’s time, including a completely inapproriate introduction to UML, which does NOT help readers at this introductory level; to me it just came across as self-important.

    If you want a gentle introduction to Java, I’d recommend “Java for Dummies” by Burd for a nice on-ramp to the language, or “Head First Java” by Sierra and Bates if you plan to do more serious work (I know, it sounds bizarre, but it’s true).

    If you want to see what this book should have been, compare it to another title in the series, “Python for the Absolute Beginners (2nd ed).” That book keeps the game-focus while doing a marvelous job of teaching the language. It also contains one of the best discussions of references/aliasing I’ve read.

    I usually donate my sub-par books to the library. I trashed this one to spare any others the pain.

  3. Review by calvinnme for Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner Rating: When this book says it is aimed at the absolute beginner it means beginner to programming rather than a programmer with no experience of Java. The book’s format of making the topic interesting by gradually building up examples that are games is a good concept but the book does not execute the concept very well.

    In practice the book launches into Java and programming in too complex a fashion for the total beginner, there are lots of abbreviations (often not explained) and it discusses terms and concepts that are not explained until a much later and do not need to be introduced this early. It seems odd to be using terms like how many bits a data type has without explaining the term, particularly considering the audience of this book. References to hex and octal are not explained, and as you go into chapter 3 the book covers methods of the random and math class before covering how to use “if” and even what classes are. The flow and structure of this book feels very awkward, covering try/catch and the basics of exception handling very early in the book before the total novice even knows WHAT you are trying to catch and why.

    The general jokey examples such as snippets of song lyrics and how to add comments around them, or a fortune teller routine demonstrating random numbers that print text such as “You will talk to someone who has bad breath” seem aimed more at attracting kids that want to write simple games on their home computers rather than someone who wants to learn Java and computer programming for professional reasons. If you are serious about learning Java, try the latest editions of either “Head First Java” or “Core Java” and skip this book. If you have never programmed at all, first try “Sams Teach Yourself Beginning Programming in 24 Hours”. The Sam’s Teach Yourself series can be rather hit-or-miss, but that particular book is definitely a hit.

    Since Amazon omits the table of contents I show that next:

    1. Getting Started

    2. Variables, Data Types, and Simple I/O

    3. The Fortune Teller: Random Numbers, Conditionals, and Arrays

    4. The Number Guesser: Using Loops and Exception Handling

    5. Blackjack: Object Oriented Programming

    6. Making Your Life Easier: The java.util Package and Generics

    7. Learning to Read and Write: The java.io Package

    8. Creating a GUI Using the Abstract Windowing Toolkit

    9. Advanced GUI, Layout Managers, and Event Handling

    10. Writing Applets

    11. Rendering 2D Graphics

    12. Animation, Sounds, and Threads

    13. Putting it All Together: The Block Game

  4. Review by P. McCarthy for Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner Rating: I bought this book about a week ago and finally had the time to start reading it, using it. As I went to the specified web site they direct you to download the programs and all the supporting code that accompanies the book, THEY ARE NO LONGER THERE! And the company does not support it any longer.

    I feel cheated and misled by this action and you should NOT get this book at all.

    Don’t waste your money and time (x2) since you’ll have to return it!

    What a joke!

  5. Review by Practicedummy for Java Programming for the Absolute Beginner Rating: This book helped me get my foot in the door for Java programming. Before this book, I was getting “stonewalled” trying to get started into Java programming. This book is aimed at people who want to start computer programming and is making Java their first language. May not be adaquate for experienced programmers who want to learn Java and already know programming conventions.

  6. Review by Doug Bell for Effective Java: Programming Language Guide (Java Series) Rating: This book contains a generous cross-section of the knowledge that differentiates Java gurus from advanced Java programmers.I’ve been working full-time in Java since 1995, prior to version 1.0. I’ve also written books and articles on Java and have been teaching Java at the University level as a sideline for four years. In that time I’ve accumulated a great deal of “expert” knowledge about the language, the JVM, and the APIs and developed opinions on the best approaches to use in Java. At this point, reading books such as this that contain a collection of tips and advice I am usually satisfied to gain one new piece of knowledge; I learned at least six new things from this book.Of the 50+ books on Java I’ve read, this book contains by far the most comprehensive and useful collection of that hard-won knowledge of core Java. The bonus is the clear and concise manner in which it is presented.Bloch is dead-on. There isn’t a single factual error or piece of bad advice in the book. The most I came up with were a couple of omissions on some of the topics. However, omissions are inevitable given the technical depth of some of the topics Bloch covers, such as serialization, exceptions and threads.I offer only two caveats about the book. The first is that the book is for advanced Java programmers. This is not to say that this information is not useful to every Java programmer, but you need to have a comprehensive knowledge of Java in order to appreciate many of the topics. This book does not provide comprehensive coverage, but rather fills in the detail and subtleties. I teach a Java IV class and recommend this to my students as additional reading after completing the class.The other caveat is that this book is written from the perspective of writing public APIs. Bloch is the lead architect for the core JDK APIs where the classes and APIs have special security considerations. Several pieces of advice he gives apply absolutely to a public API where you want to defend the API from malicious code. However, if the code you are creating is intended for a less hostile and more trusting environment, fully following all of his advice will result in unnecessarily complex code. The one knock I give to the book is that Bloch does not delineate the circumstances that would dictate following his rather rigorous approach to bullet-proofing an API and can leave the reader with the mistaken perception that the advice applies equally to all categories of code.Overall, this is absolutely a must-have book for the experienced Java programmer. Even if you are not yet an advanced Java programmer, buy this book and keep revisiting it as you advance until everything in the book makes sense to you.

  7. Review by Paul Haahr for Effective Java: Programming Language Guide (Java Series) Rating: I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about programming, languages, style, etc. This book is without question the best thing I’ve read about how to program in Java.The book contains 57 suggestions on what to do or not to do when writing Java code. Most are common sense, though not all — the material on serialization was new to me, for example. But it’s common sense that’s developed over time, and much of it is not obvious until you have a lot of experience using the language. Even then, it’s worth reading; I consider myself a fairly experienced Java programmer, and I’d say that a quarter of the book was new material for me. Even when I knew a technique he was recommending, it was really good to read the arguments Bloch made for doing something in a particular way. And I found that I agree with almost everything he wrote.The book is very Java-specific. Some of the tips generalize to other, similar, object-oriented languages, or to systems with similar thread models, but, by and large, this is nitty gritty Java hacking. I like that: it allows Block to be concrete in what he says. And, unlike most of the stuff written by JavaSoft employees, this book does not try to pretend that Java is flawless, which is a refreshing perspective; see, for example, his discussion of the Cloneable interface.What’s best about the book is that it encodes a lot of the lore and feel of the language: how to use it in practice.If you’re working in Java, it belongs on your shelf next to the language specification, and those are the only two general books on the language you should need.

  8. Review by Goldin Evgeny for Effective Java: Programming Language Guide (Java Series) Rating: IMHO, The Java Bible is out. It is that simple. I think this book deserves no
    less popularity and respect than “Effective C++” which set the high standard
    to the “Effective” series.It’s definitely not a beginners book, this is the book that core Java developers
    should memorize by heart. This book is written by the Sun expert who both
    design and develop Java run-time libraries (Collections, in particular, which is
    one of the prettiest species in Java) and is definitely aware of their successes
    and failures. Out of his experience Joshua brings hundreds of “how about this”
    unexpectable situations – those I doubt you was ever thinking of before.It contains 57 issues covering topics about:
    – creating objects (how about static factories vs constructors ?)
    – methods common to all objects (ever thought that overriding clone, equals, hashCode
    and toString is easy ?),
    – designing interfaces of your classes and interfaces (ever realized how immutability
    is important ? ever wondered which one of the inner classes fits best ?)
    – substitutes to C constructs (don’t say there are no unions and enums in Java)
    – general programming and methods (ever knew that overloading is dangerous in
    it’s nature and that ( 1.00 – ( 9 * 0.1 )) != 0.1 ?)
    – exceptions (ever wondered how should you react to some particular failure –
    terminate the JVM, throw the exception [which one ?], return null ?)
    – threads (ever thought that double check locking is broken and that notify() is
    more dangerous than notifyAll() anh what are ‘alien’ methods that cause deadlocks ?)
    – serialization (making your object serializable should never be just declaring
    it this way ! How about readResolve() and defensive readObject() ?)Amazingly – this book contains tons of essential information but Joshua’s
    succinct style simple put it into 230 pages and 57 items. I don’t think there’s
    any sentence or chapter you may ignore – every word author says worths remembering
    very good and very carefully. I read it once but I’m definitely going to re-read
    it once in a while.If you need other proofs – just believe me that most of the Java articles on
    JavaWorld and JDC reference this book in that or another way. If James Gosling is
    saying “Some might think that I don’t need any Java books, but I need this one”,
    doesn’t it mean that you and me definitely need it too ?
    I wish I could give it 6 starts, really.Happy reading !

  9. Review by Michael Ernest for Effective Java: Programming Language Guide (Java Series) Rating: I like books that underpromise in their titles and overdeliver in their contents. This book has 57 items of programming advice that are not only well-chosen, but also reveal a clear, deep grasp of the language. Each one is justified with practical illustrations of what can happen if you only apply do-it-yourself intuition or, more likely, the most direct path to a solution.Joshua Bloch is cited by several sources as a math prodigy and an accomplished researcher. None of that high-octane stuff affects this book. The prose style is simple and practical. The author never strains to detail a complex or abstract tangent. For example, his piece on random number generation (under Item 30, “Know and Use the Libraries”), raises a whole slew of “interesting” questions, but he stays on point (trust the library to do work you don’t know needs doing). He avoids proving his assertions when a demonstration will suffice, so the book stays short and focussed.Many of these points were review material for me, but I gained from Bloch’s discussions nonetheless. As often as not, I preferred his reasoning over ones I have relied on; Bloch’s just feels better rooted. And, in a world of high-stress schedules and moving-target projects, it’s refreshing to hear someone with heavy concerns of his own preach the Good Word on better programming.This book will strengthen your understanding of Java. It will confirm the things you’ve been doing right all along, and politely show you how you could do better. It might also give you a way to move people who wouldn’t listen to broken-record you, but would listen to a smart stranger who says the same thing. ;)

  10. Review by Daniel Kirkdorffer for Effective Java: Programming Language Guide (Java Series) Rating: So you’ve been a Java Developer since Day One. Or you’ve just decided to become one. Either way this book is a must read. Object Oriented programming takes a certain skill and understanding, and Josh Bloch’s book addresses a number of Java programming idioms that most people don’t pay enough attention to. I know I’ve certainly violated a number of the rules or suggestions made in this book.The book is easy to read through, and can be used as a reference book as well as a learning guide. The top Java people around participated in its review, and if James Gosling stands up at a JavaOne keynote and recommends this book (which he did), that’s enough to make me sit up and pay attention.Get it. Read it. Use it. You won’t regret it.

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