As a veteran programmer of several other languages, I found this to be a very well-written, careful and thorough book, at least for my needs. I do agree with the others somewhat that it lacks in the area of step-by-step instructions for those unfamiliar with computers, command lines, environment variables, etc. However, I can't take any marks of for that because the title is NOT "How To Use A Variety Of Operating Systems". Anyone who couldn't make it through the installer probably should learn other skills before Java programming. The other "tricky" part, setting an environment variable, is very platform dependent (and on many platforms, shell-dependent). Still, given the thoroughness of the other sections, if there is a 3rd Edition, that would be a useful addition to complete the package without bulking it up much.
I especially thought that the time spent in the first three chapters to introduce the Big Picture of Java development (before turning to language specifics) was an excellent decision. Many books cover the topic in detail without giving the reader an understanding of the Big Picture.
Also, every time the authors introduced something that I thought was unusual, just as I began to question it, I found that they would put an "aside" into the description explaining the issue that I found to be unexpected or unusual. Bonus marks for that.
On the negative side, I feel the skill level required to read this book and really understand it is too high for something called "Learning Java". There are many comparisons to other languages, and programming topics that may have no frame of reference to novice readers (e.g. heaps, process stacks, etc). As a veteran programmer, I appreciated all of this, however I would not recommend the book to anyone learning programming (in general) for the first time. I would highly recommend it to programmers with existing intermediate to veteran experience who would like to learn Java as a new language.
|
