For those programmers that want to learn Java, this book is an excellent resource. It appears to be targeted towards experienced programmers coming from a different language. There is a great deal to like about this book. The content is at an appropriate depth and numerous topics are covered. Most important perhaps is the way that the material is covered. Graphics and text are mixed in such a way to keep the reader visually stimulated. The explanations are very atypical for a book on a technical subject.
The book is organized as a tutorial of seventeen chapters that start with object oriented concepts and progress through graphics, swing, networking, I/O, RMI and deployment issues. I really like the Code Kitchen project. It is built in an incremental fashion on the material covered in the later chapters. In each chapter there is a group of exercises to challenge your retention of the material. But even more powerful are the learning concepts that the book is based on. Kathy and Bert are experienced instructors, but they have taken their knowledge of the content and merged it with the latest information in learning concepts to create a book that is fun to read, but a tremendous teaching tool. Dry and boring authors beware; tedious technical tomes are no longer acceptable, if they ever were.
The book is an excellent investment in time and money for anyone that wants to learn Java, but if you prefer a more serious tone, there is always “Thinking in Java” by Bruce Eckel, another of my favorites. However, we liked the book so much that we bought several copies to start some of our staff down the Java road. One last point, do the exercises. They may seem a little trivial, but like calisthenics, they are very effective.
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