I've read a lot of technical books, and they seem to fall into one of two categories: swimming in unorganized detail or well-organized explanations with a frustrating lack of detail. This book strikes the balance perfectly. One of the joys of reading it is that I know I don't have to be sitting beside a computer with a Web browser to call up the JDK documentation for every new class that's mentioned, as I must for so many other books.
I'm new to Java, having taken only a few courses, and I must say that this is the only book I've found so far that I can read anywhere and get a complete picture of some aspect of Swing. It's so good that I often find myself absent-mindedly looking up core Java information in the book only to remember that it covers only Swing. Now what I need is a core Java book with the same layout and thorough coverage!
I notice that several people complain that the code examples don't work. I'm willing to give the book five... whatever they are... because I never try to run the examples; that's not my learning style. I study the examples as illustrations of the theories presented, and I study them thoroughly, but like written English I don't sweat minor errors. If I get the concepts, that's enough for me. So, if you learn by typing the code into your system and trying it out, perhaps you won't be so enthusiastic about this book. However, if you're like me and want to read a definitive explanation of all things Swing, then you need this book.
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