After reading this book, the first thing that came to mind was that the book was probably titled incorrectly. In my opinion, there is nothing “hardcore” in this book at all. Instead, it should be called Smart Java, because it contains many smart practices to follow in your Java programming. These are practices that every Java programmer needs to know in order to write rock-solid Java programs. Therefore, I recommend this book to any Java programmer.
Many of the chapters focus on coding techniques that can be used to prevent run-time logic errors and instead letting the compiler catch your mistakes for you. These techniques can save a tremendous amount of time because it is easier to track down errors at compile time rather than hunting down the bug when the program runs incorrectly. These techniques reminded me of similar techniques I used to follow as a C++ programmer that sort of got lost on me when I started programming in Java. Some such practices include using keywords such as assert and final. There is also a good chapter on techniques for declaring constants to make your code type-safe.
There are a few chapters in the book that I wasn’t particularly interested in learning about. For instance, the chapter called “Data Modeling” seemed to not quite fit with the rest of the book. It involved more design practices than coding practices. However, I’m sure these chapters may be useful to some programmers out there.
The last chapter of the book discusses the new JDK 1.5 and the new features that it will offer. The author does a good job of explaining these features, and how the next version of the JDK will make Java an even better language than it already is. Some of the new features even make some of his earlier suggestions in the book outdated. This chapter provided a good end to this book because it will allow the programmer to make full use of all the wonderful new features of the new JDK once it is finally released.
Overall, the book was quite good. There were a few chapters of the book that didn’t quite seem to fit the theme of the book, but they still provided intelligent insights into Java programming. There were spelling errors sprinkled throughout, but nothing that really caused misinterpretation of the author’s points. As I said before, I would highly recommend that all Java programmers read this book! Even the most hardcore of programmers may learn a thing or two!
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