Please recommend a book for a Java beginner.

[TechBookReport]

I am new to Java but not new to programming. What in your opinion is the best first book
for Java? I'd like something that has a good section on creating Windows, Applets and
Swing. Source code on a CD or website for all examples would help.

Thanks.

Look at the list of recommendations on TechBookReport:
http://www.techbookreport.com/JavaIndex.html All of the recommended
books are reviewed on the site as well.

 

[SteveSmith]

Paul Tomblin coughed up:


See my other post. I used it in java classes I was contracted to teach,
primarily to companies converting over to java from some other paradigm.
The newbies and senior engineers alike all raved about the book.

Thanks. I think I'll look for some more reviews of this book. I'm mostly thinking about
the negative comment I read about the section on Swing.

 

[SteveSmith]

Look at the list of recommendations on TechBookReport:
http://www.techbookreport.com/JavaIndex.html All of the recommended
books are reviewed on the site as well.

Thank you, I found it useful.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

(e-mail address removed) coughed up:

.[rip]...

See my other post. I used it in java classes I was contracted to
teach, primarily to companies converting over to java from some
other paradigm. The newbies and senior engineers alike all raved
about the book.

Thanks. I think I'll look for some more reviews of this book. I'm
mostly thinking about the negative comment I read about the section
on Swing.

Not sure on this, I haven't had a need to checkout his books any longer.
However, I would have to agree concerning his earlier editions that he seems
to go out of his way to not discuss GUI's in the proper depth.

For example, in his 4th edition he even says the following, which I found
*bitterly* disappointing, because it was a subject that I did /not/ want to
gloss over in my class. Note that layouts are used in AWT and Swing alike:

<*DISAPPOINTING* quote from 4th edition, Ch. 19, page 535>

The final kind of AWT layout manager is GridBagLayout, [...]

GridBagLayout is excessively complicated for what it does,
and I recommend helping it fall into disuse by not bothering
with it.

</*DISAPPOINTING*>

Now I checked with later editions, and it seems that he changed this around
quite a bit, which is good, because for such a good author as Peter Linden
to have made such an error in judgment is just.....awful.

However, I do recommend his book for all levels regardless, for all the
reasons that will become apparent once you read it.

....[rip]...

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

(e-mail address removed) coughed up:

....[rip]...

Thanks. I think I'll look for some more reviews of this book. I'm
mostly thinking about the negative comment I read about the section
on Swing.

Well, while I'm at it, I figured it made sense to enter in the only other
[big] mistake that he made in the 4th edition. He completely botches what
is meant by "pass by reference".

Here is a partial quote:

<*DISAPPOINTING* quote from 4th edition, Ch.2, page 48>

[...]
"Passing by reference" means that a reference to (i.e. the
address of) the argument is passed to the method.

[...]
What's really going on here is that a copy of the value that
references an object argument is passed to the method.
This is why some java books say "everything is passed by
value"---the object reference is passed by value which
effectively passes the object itself by reference.

</*DISAPPOINTING*>

This is of course a disaster. The statement "the object reference is passed
by value" is indeed correct. But to add "...which effectively passes the
object itself by reference" is *dead* *wrong*.

It does not effectively do that at all since "passing an object by
reference" still has a distinct meaning in computer science completely
contrary to the "reference being passed by value". Adding the word
"effectively" does not make it so! Passing by reference (even "effectively"
so) means that the method can use the formal parameter on the LHS of an
equation to change the actual parameter!

I'm preaching to the choir in this newsgroup, but consider that method()
cannot do anything to the actual parameter.

public void method(Object o)
{
o = null;
}

Object obj = new Object();
method(obj);
// obj is not null at this point!

I really hope he fixed this in later versions.

But again, I still strongly recommend his book for the reasons I previously
described.

....[rip]...