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Introduction to Java Programming, Comprehensive (8th Edition) Review

Try to learn Java from the tutorials available online, and you encounter breezy references to unfamiliar concepts and examples so complicated you can't tell the predefined Java classes from those the programmer has added. But if you make an investment and buy this book, a master teacher leads you by the hand.
The organization of the text seems odd at first. Why, for example, does Liang introduce a single GUI component, JOptionPane, at the beginning? It turns out he is showing you how to parse strings into other data types. Why does coverage of the String class intervene in the middle? It turns out to be a good example of an object, following up on the previous chapter. Every concept is presented in a logical progression.
Along the way, Liang makes excursions to topics like 2D arrays and Wrapper classes. I recently finished the brief version of this book and then needed to use a Swing feature, tables, which is covered only in the comprehensive version. So I had to rely on Sun's tutorial, which is excellent but assumes you know the basics. It gives no explanation of the object type used to hold a table's data -- but Liang's intro had prepared me to recognize and use a 2D array. My first attempt didn't work. Closer review showed that booleans and integers should be surrounded with extra code -- which, having read Liang, I knew were wrappers. That's when I decided to continue on to this comprehensive version. Liang is that good, you'll want all 1300 pages.
Throughout the book are beautifully designed examples, presenting exactly the code necessary to illustrate the target concepts and no more, and presented in full. If you're new to OOP and unsure where to place certain code, you can use Liang's examples as guides. Well thought-out reiview questions at the end of each chapter help consolidate what you've learned, and the exercises give you hands-on learning experience. These are particularly helpful in the early chapters -- and fun; no other entertainment could beat the exercises on loops. The solutions are provided online for half of them, and you pick up new points by noting how Liang's solution differs from yours.
The book's layout is a paragon of clarity, with green text used to set off literal values and code. There are handy topic descriptions in the generous margins, which makes it easy to find what you're looking for when you use the book for reference. The index is good. There are a few serious typos that can trip you up -- i.e., the order of addition and subtraction is backwards in exercise 4.25, computing pi -- but most of them are obvious (and, dear publisher, they ought to have been fixed by edition 8).
Supplemental materials are available online. The video notes are a bit of a snooze, but they may be valuable to those with a different learning style. They are walkthroughs of the examples in the text, presented in a calm, pleasant voice.
Pearson-Prentice Hall has, however, made two lamentable decisions. One is to offer no hardback edition -- this is a reference book that is destined for heavy use and doomed to cellotape repairs as a flimsy paperback. The other is to publish brief versus complete editions, when what is needed is two separate tomes for first half and second half.

Introduction to Java Programming, Comprehensive (8th Edition) Overview

Introduction to Java Programming, Comprehensive, 8e, features comprehensive coverage ideal for a one-, two-, or three-semester CS1 course sequence. Regardless of major, students will be able to grasp concepts of problem-solving and programming — thanks to Liang's fundamentals-first approach, students learn critical problem solving skills and core constructs before object-oriented programming. Liang's approach has been extended to application-rich programming examples, which go beyond the traditional math-based problems found in most texts. Students are introduced to topics like control statements, methods, and arrays before learning to create classes. Later chapters introduce advanced topics including graphical user interface, exception handling, I/O, and data structures. Small, simple examples demonstrate concepts and techniques while longer examples are presented in case studies with overall discussions and thorough line-by-line explanations. Increased data structures chapters make the Eighth Edition ideal for a full course on data structures.

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Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software Review

This book really changed my way of thinking about object-oriented design. The idea is that when designing a new class hierarchy, though implementation details may differ, you often find yourself using the same kinds of solutions over and over again. Rather than approaching each design task out of context as an individual, isolated problem, the strategy is to study the task and identify the underlying design pattern most likely to be applicable, and follow the class structure outlined by that pattern. It's a "cookbook" school of design that works amazingly well.
There are other advantages to this book. It isolates 23 of the most common patterns and presents them in detail. You wouldn't think that 23 patterns would be enough, but once you become adept at recognizing patterns, you'll find that a large fraction of the patterns you use in practice are among these 23. For each pattern, the book carefully presents the intent of the pattern, a motivating example, consequences of using that pattern, implementation considerations and pitfalls, sample code (C++ or Smalltalk), known uses of that pattern in real-world applications, and a list of related patterns.
Upon first reading, you will start to recognize these patterns in the frameworks you see. Upon second reading, you'll begin to see how these patterns can help you in your own designs, and may also start to see new patterns not listed in the book. Once you become familiar with the pattern concept, you will be able to originate your own patterns, which will serve you well in the future. One of the most valuable contributions of this book is that it is designed not merely to help you identify patterns, but to give you a sense of which patterns are appropriate in which contexts.
I think this book is particularly valuable to many C++ and Java programmers, because of the dynamic and flexible design philosophy it follows. (Its two fundamental principles of reusable OO design are: "Program to an interface, not an implementation" and "Favor object composition over class inheritance".) I've found that many C++ books unfortunately tend to emphasize a rather static and inflexible design philosophy. Many C++ programmers do not realize how the language and the books they've studied from have been limiting their thinking until they have been exposed to ideas from other lanugages. The authors of this book have obviously been influenced by other languages as well, especially Smalltalk, and have brought many of its best lessons to C++ design. Most Java books seem to take after the C++ books, even though Java is a more dynamic language. This book may help Java programmers take full advantage of the extra power offered by their language, if they look deeply enough into some of the lesser-known features its runtime system affords.
Last, but not least, this book is valuable because it names the patterns it uses, and so gives programmers a common vocabulary to describe design concepts, rather than particular implementations. You'll find yourself saying things like, "That would be a good use for a Decorator", or "Should we use a Facade or a Mediator in this case?" I encourage readers of this book to use this vocabulary with other programmers.
In summary, this is one of the few books that I think belongs on every programmer's "must-have" list. Not to overuse a cliche, but like object-oriented design itself, the pattern concept is one of those rare paradigm-shifts in computer programming. It is equally valuable to expert professional and novice student alike. The book has a home page at http://st-www.cs.uiuc.edu/users/patterns/DPBook/DPBook.html

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software Overview

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36% Off Discounts: Best Price Effective Java (2nd Edition) Review

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Effective Java (2nd Edition) Review

Please see my review of the first edition for my general response. My opinion hasn't changed with the second, so I'll focus on what's new in this review.
The second edition was well worth the wait. The number of items are beefed up to 78 from 57. The chapter "Substitutes for C Constructs" is gone, but replaced by more contemporary material on "Generics" and "Enums and Annotations." Some first edition items have been amended to address features new to Java since the first edition was released. Some new items also address concurrency, favoring it over traditional Java threads. As expected, the cases for each item are methodically and persuaisvely made. If you are particularly interested in concurrency, also consider Java Concurrency in Practice.
The item discussions use boldface liberally to highlight key points, sometimes calling attention to arguments in the first edition that have been updated. If you're skimming -- the author in fact doesn't encourage cover-to-cover reading -- these highlights are useful attractors to important material you might otherwise gloss.
It's often helpful to have practices or insights you've earned on your own backed up by a reputable authority. Effective Java certainly helps with that. More importantly, the arguments that support his items are clear, easy to read, and compelling. Anyone proficient with Java would have to go a long way to find fault with them. In fact, it took considerable investigation to determine that one item from the first edition -- "Provide a readResolve method when necessary" -- was not the best advice for some cases. Bloch addresses that issue head-on in this edition, and provides its replacement ("For instance control, prefer enum types to readResolve").
As with the first edition, this one is a necessity for any serious Java developer.

Effective Java (2nd Edition) Overview

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Head First Design Patterns Review

At first I didn't understand how they would apply the Head First formula to design patterns. I'd read two head first before this one and I was impressed with those so I took a look and now, not only is it clear how they approached the topic, it's also clear to me that this is the best way to learn design patterns.
The Gang of Four book laid out the basics. Here is the pattern, here are some examples. The head first book goes a lot further. They show you good and bad examples of the pattern. They give solid reasoning behind the pattern. It's great.
There are times when I would look at a piece of code and have the author explain to me that it was based on one of the GoF patterns. I would come away thinking, if that's the pattern, then that pattern sucks. It's clear that patterns can be misapplied. So understanding the the how design patterns are applied, and how they are commonly applied wrongly, or to an extreme, is just as important as understanding the basic mechanics of the pattern itself.
The example code is in Java, but I think this is an ideal book for anyone passionate about patterns.

Head First Design Patterns Overview

You're not alone. At any given moment, somewhere in the world someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. You know you don't want to reinvent the wheel (or worse, a flat tire), so you look to Design Patterns--the lessons learned by those who've faced the same problems. With Design Patterns, you get to take advantage of the best practices and experience of others, so that you can spend your time on...something else. Something more challenging. Something more complex. Something more fun. You want to learn about the patterns that matter--why to use them, when to use them, how to use them (and when NOT to use them). But you don't just want to see how patterns look in a book, you want to know how they look "in the wild". In their native environment. In other words, in real world applications. You also want to learn how patterns are used in the Java API, and how to exploit Java's built-in pattern support in your own code. You want to learn the real OO design principles and why everything your boss told you about inheritance might be wrong (and what to do instead).You want to learn how those principles will help the next time you're up a creek without a design pattern. Most importantly, you want to learn the "secret language" of Design Patterns so that you can hold your own with your co-worker (and impress cocktail party guests) when he casually mentions his stunningly clever use of Command, Facade, Proxy, and Factory in between sips of a martini. You'll easily counter with your deep understanding of why Singleton isn't as simple as it sounds, how the Factory is so often misunderstood, or on the real relationship between Decorator, Facade and Adapter. With Head First Design Patterns, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking Decorator is something from the "Trading Spaces" show. Best of all, in a way that won't put you to sleep!We think your time is too important (and too short) to spend it struggling with academic texts. If you've read a Head First book, you know what to expect--a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Using the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, Head First Design Patterns will load patterns into your brain in a way that sticks. In a way that lets you put them to work immediately. In a way that makes you better at solving software design problems, and better at speaking the language of patterns with others on your team.


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Head First Java, 2nd Edition Review

When I first saw "Head First Java", it reminds me of the colorful "conversational English" books I had when I started to learn English years ago. The casual, humorous books have turned out effective for English language learning. Is that style good for the Java language learners as well? Is this type of books for beginners only?
With those questions in mind, I started to read "Head First Java". Since I consider myself a Java expert (I wrote a Java book myself, after all), I decided that I would NOT read the book from cover to cover. Instead, I would randomly flip through the book for the humorous stories and photos. I figured that if I cannot learn much new about Java from a "beginner" book, I can at least have some fun.
Geez, I was wrong. I was ADDICTED to the book's short stories, annotated code snippets, mock interviews, puzzle games and brain exercises. They are not only entertaining but also informative. It may be a beginner's book but the stuff they cover are definitely deep enough for expert readers as well (e.g. multiple inheritance, polymorphism, inner classes, threads, RMI, ... just to name a few). The best of all is that I can actually remember the things I learned from the book because I associate them with the stories and pictures. I guess it has something to do with the fact that both sides of my brain are active when reading this book: The right side is for the stories and the left side is for the technical and logic stuff.
There are other great Java books (e.g. "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel) in the market. But they are all very serious and require the readers to spend hours to read entire chapters. The great thing about "Head First Java" is that the bite-size code snippets and stories allow me to learn something about Java in my 5-10 minutes spare time, one piece a time.
The overall writing style is casual and enlightened. The presentation style (fonts and placements of graphical elements) fits the content very well. The book covers a wide variety of Java topics including: basic code structure and language syntax, OOP concepts, math and numbers, exception handling, the Swing GUI library, serialization, network, and distributed computing.
Of course, the casual style is not for everyone. I know people who love the re-assuring feeling from "serious" books. But I can re-assure you that Kathy and Bert are authoritative figures in the Java training community. The content is absolutely first class. I highly recommend "Head First Java" for both Java beginners and expert readers.

Head First Java, 2nd Edition Overview

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