Books for/about - java

SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5 Study Guide (Exam 310-055) (Certification Press Study Guides)

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
Authors: Katherine Sierra Bert Bates

ISBN: 0072253606
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Summary: Great study guide for the scjp exam
Like the head-first series, this book explains the concepts in a manner that is easy to understand. I especially liked the 2-minute drill at the end of each chapter, which presents a bulleted list of important points.

I believe that studying the concepts presented in this book will enable me to pass the exam when I take it later this year.

Summary: One Of the Top Two SCJP Books
In the last two years, I have explored all the SCJP books, and I find the following two books very useful:

1. This Book:
This is a very comprehensive book and the focus on the exam objectives is pretty good. There are lots of praises already done for this book. So, I only want to point out from the Introduction inside the book that this is NOT the book for the beginners, it's only for advanced programmers.

2. The SCJP Exam for J2SE 5 by Paul Sanghera (Apress).
This book is new, so not many people know about it. The special thing about this book is that the way material is presented, this book is also good for beginners and intermediate programmers. It also has an excellent focus on the exam objectives. Another special feature of the book that I liked is that it presents complete runnable code examples distributed over all the chapters. You can downlaod the code examples and experiment with them. This can be very useful for the beginners because the SCJP exam is very code intensive. Bottom line: You can prepare for the exam while learning Java programming. If you are advanced programmer, skip the first chapter.
This book does not have a CD but a complete practice exam with well explained answers to the exam questions is given in an Appendix.
Both books re excellent books by their own virtue and get 5 stars from me.

Summary: all you ever need to pass the 310-035 exam
the book says it all, this is all you ever need to pass the 310-035 exam (although it's a bit obsolete now, better going for the java 5.0 exam). i buy this book together with khalid's book from amazon, they are both very good but has difference flavor. this one is easier to read and understand and full of humour, but covers only what you need to pass the exam. khalid's book on the other hand is very dense, it covers more than you need to pass the exam but it's good if you want to grasp the deep knowledge of java, not very easy to read though. if you just want to pass the exam and can choose only one book, this is definitely the best choice.

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Head First Design Patterns

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Elisabeth Freeman Eric Freeman Bert Bates Kathy Sierra

ISBN: 0596007124
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Summary: Sesame Street for Software Developers!!!
This book absolutely rocks! I truly have a passion for software development, but I find most books to be just plain dry and boring. This book takes a light-hearted and fun "Sesame Street" type approach to teaching design patterns. If you want to learn more about this subject and have fun doing it, you won't find a better book! It's not only fun, the examples make it very easy to understand the core concepts of design patterns. You won't find this type of approach in the Gang of Four book or Sun's "Core J2EE Patterns" book. If I were designing a computer science curriculum for a university, this book would be required reading!

Summary: The best book on Design Patterns!
This book helped me pass the Sun Certified Enterprise Architect Exam. I had tried to read the Gang of Four book, several times, but it just couldn't hold my interest. Using this book, the related poster, and some flash cards I made up, I was able to master all the patterns in the GoF book in just a couple of weeks. I got 100% on the design patterns questions on my cert!

Highly recommended!

Summary: Excellant Book even if you are not a Java developer
This book was recommended by a friend. When I got the book and started to look at it I was afraid I had just wasted my money. The style of the book is so different from other technical books I have read, I thought I would not be able to read this one. This was not true. The book is really easy to read and I found the style perfect for this topic. I can't say enough good things about this book. I can say that I am a C# developer and I was totally able to relate to 99% of all the examples in this book. If anything this book will help you understand how similar the to languages and their frameworks are similar.

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	Java How to Program (6th Edition) (How to Program (Deitel)) Publisher: Prentice Hall Authors: Harvey M. Deitel Paul J. Deitel
ISBN: 0131483986 List Price: $102.00 Amazon Price: $95.99 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: Buy the International Edition and SAVE Money Search for ISBN 0131290142 in amazon's database. Great book for learning java. They cover just about everything for the beginning user. Summary: Not for everyone While I found this book informative and detailed, I think that may be the main problem with it. It is written in a confused manner that gives the reader too much information on each page. I was constantly feeling bombarded. The information is presented in several different ways on each page and it can get disorienting while reading. That said, the book is very thorough and well researched. I am not sure that it is anywhere worth the price, however. For a third of the money you might consider Java: A Beginner's Guide by Schildt, or one of the O'Reilly books. Summary: Good and detailed introduction I had programming experience in python, C, and some other languges and needed to learn Java. I found this book very helpful to bring me up to speed within one week. It is a detailed course that contains a lot of information to satisfy any need. If you have limited time, selective reading is a must to master these 1,500 pages. The books also serves well as a reference once you start writing your code. Due to its volume, you should mark your notes with page numbers, otherwise, it will be difficult to find the places of interest quickly, despite the good table of contents and a detailed keyword index. This book saved me a lot of time and fully satisfied my expectations. Summary:

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Mac OS X Tiger: Missing Manual

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: David Pogue

ISBN: 0596009410
List Price: $29.95
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Summary: GREAT MANUAL!
This manual is awesome for all your mac needs. It really has so much detail and anyone can use it to fix most problems on their mac. It has really been useful since I purchased it about a month ago. Has really helped with startup issues (not that Macs have very many). And for general use, it contains great details about how to use OS X and the programs that come with it! Would definitely recommend for all Mac users, especially beginners!

Summary: The Best Tiger Manual -- Stand up and applaud this book
After reading this book, I felt like I had to stand up or at least applaud. It was really a masterpiece: extremely comprehensive, easy to understand, expertly organized. The missing manual series by O'Reilly claims to be "The book that should have been in the box." This book is to computer manuals what iPods are to digital music. Powerful, yet easy to use

The book is designed for someone who has never used Tiger before and is not all that familiar with the Mac either. Unlike a dummies book, he doesn't talk down to you and respects the fact that you can learn things if shown how to use them.

This book doesn't just cover Tiger, but also covers the iLife application suite: iMovie, iDVD and iTunes. In fact, I really don't consider this just a Tiger manual. It's really a iMac User's Guide, covering pretty much every aspect of your new Macintosh. Have a problem with your Mac not working right? There's a great troubleshooting section at the end of the book.

The index and table of contents is well organized so you can focus on the sections you want to learn more about. For example, if you don't use classic applications (most people don't) then skip over the section. Finding out how to burn a music CD or setting up your email was very easy to find and understand. No aspect of Tiger was left unexplained. The book even explains how to use the voice recognition software..something I've never played with but always wanted to learn how to use

Personally, I thought the coverage of Mac to PC and PC to Mac networking was great, since so many people live in mixed computing environments.

The major complaint I think some people might have about this book is it's big. Over 800 pages can be a bit intimidating. I showed it to a customer and their response was: " I thought Macs were so easy to use?" Even though it is easy to understand and find the information you want, I wouldn't suggest it as the first manual to a new Mac user. I still think Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger: Peachpit Learning Series by Robin Williams is the best beginners book for Mac users. She really walks people through every step with bright colorful pictures.

The ideal user of this book is someone who understands the basics of Tiger and their Mac but says "I don't think I'm using my Mac to it's full potential." After reading this book, they'll have a complete arsenal to understand any aspect of their Mac.

Pros: The ideal book for Tiger users: complete, detailed, and easy to understand
Cons: Not designed for brand new users with no previous Mac experience, the amount of information may seem overwhelming

Summary: Good but not Great
I recommend this book for most intermediate users but if you really want to everything, there isn't information here.

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Head First Java, 2nd Edition

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Kathy Sierra Bert Bates

ISBN: 0596009208
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Summary: The Best By Far
Java was the first programming language I learned and Head First Java was the first book I used to try and learn it. I found it funny and engaging but, more importantly, the topics stuck in my mind and I learnt the basics fast.

As this was the first programming book I had used, I was assuming that all books would be this easy to use. However, other java books are tedious, vague and confusing in comparison. I soon abandoned them and returned to Head First.

If I had to make a critisism of the book, then it would be that in the first chapter, there is a lot to take in and you may need to re-read it a few times before you move on but other than that
I found the book excellent.

Summary: Best Java intro book for Beginners
Best Java introduction book from best-selling Java community instructors. You will enjoy both the content and layout of the book!

Summary: Made for geeks, entertains all
This book is simply the best programming book I have ever used. For learning Java it is an excellent reference as well as being humorous and capturing your attention to the point at which you can't put it down.

Unlike other books that drone on about one thing or another, but leave you sitting there dreaming of a nice comfortable bed (since you would be sleeping), Head First Java keeps you on the edge of your seat and laughing throughout every chapter.

It also includes mini practice activities in every chapter that will let you try out what you just learned. This hands-on approach is, in my opinion, the best way to learn the ins and outs of any programming language.

I highly reccommend this book for those learning Java programming as the last book you will need in your quest.

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	Ajax in Action Publisher: Manning Publications Authors: Dave Crane Eric Pascarello Darren James
ISBN: 1932394613 List Price: $44.95 Amazon Price: $28.32 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: One of the best book I read in few years I bought this book after a long time I was looking for a good book on AJAX. I read the revies on Amazon - and decided to give it a try - it was worth every cent paid for the book. The authors take real life examples, and show how to implement the solution using AJAX. They pay attention to possible pitfalls, and the code that displayed in the book, can be used as is ! It is defenetly one of the best book I read in few years. Summary: This book will answer questions about design and refactoring, security, speed and system resources for Ajax applications If you are looking for some Ajax code to copy and paste into your webpages, this is not the book for you. But if you are creating Ajax web applications on a large or small scale and need to consider such aspects as design and refactoring, security, speed and system resources, then this book will help answer some of these questions. Although the authors, Dave Crane, Eric Pascarello and Darren James, discuss mostly the client-side of Ajax, their approach for this book is to re-teach web programmers away from the standard/classical webpage and introduce a new way for the server, browser and webpage to work together through Ajax. The first part of the book concentrates on what Ajax is and how it differs from standard/classical web programming. The authors discuss the four core technologies of Ajax (JavaScript, CSS, DOM and XMLHttpRequest) concentrating on the different ways each is used and how they work together in an Ajax application. Ajax takes the concept of separation of tasks to an advanced level. Once you are familiar with this new approach to these four preexisting technologies, you are ready to work on refining the coding process. Ajax uses a larger amount of JavaScript compared to classical webpages and the webpages are refreshed less often. The author's approach to managing a large Ajax code base is by design framework and refactoring which is a fancy way of saying they teach you to write small, reusable chunks of code where each chunk has a specific task. They take this code component framework further by using the Model-View-Controller architecture which separates an Ajax application into three parts. The Model is the part that performs the task and the View is the part that presents the results. The Controller is the liaison between the other two. By keeping these parts separate, your code is more reusable and more easily maintained. Changes to one part do not directly affect the other part. With Ajax, the user does not have that familiar "click and wait" routine as the webpage refreshes to reflect changes. With Ajax, as the information is passed to the server and data is returned to the browser, there is no need to refresh the webpage. Therefore we need new ways to keep the user informed as to the process. A few of the new visual feedback components discussed here are the status bar, pop up dialog and inline highlighting. All of these happen asynchronously. Many books do not address the topic of security. One thing I liked about this book was that the authors discuss potential security issues when using Ajax and several possible ways to close these security holes. Another area covered was performance issues such as speed and system resources. First you learn ways to monitor the performance of your Ajax application and then how to analyze and improve your code. The book finishes with five sample projects which are built step-by-step. The first is an Ajax web form. In this project you learn how to use Ajax to link form input fields in such a way as to pre-populate the values (choices) in the form fields. The choice made by the user in one form field causes the values for the second field to be updated as necessary. This can be done without reloading the webpage because the two fields are linked and Ajax does the updating in the background. Next you learn how to create an Ajax type-ahead suggest feature (such as the Google Suggest) and ways to possibly improve on this using an object-oriented TextSuggest component. Moving from forms to more advanced user interface features, you will learn how to create an Ajax portal project such as A9.com, an Ajax based live search system and how Ajax can work with external RSS protocol instead of a server. The authors first walk you through coding these projects and then show you how to refactor each into reusable components. When you have finished, you should have a code library that you can apply to any Ajax web application. Dave Crane is a computer programmer and simulation modeller. Eric Pascarello is an ASP.NET developer and the author of JavaScript: Your Visual Blueprint for Building Dynamic Web Pages (2nd ed.). Darren James is the architect of the open source Rico project. Summary: Good introductory book for budding AJAXian This book is my first AJAX book and frankly speaking this book did keep up its promises with a good introduction and smooth-sailing examples. I am not a Client-side scripting expert, but I found this book feeds a lot basics about Javascript and even CSS. These scripting langaugaes are important when you are working with Ajax. The book has lots of examples that you'll find useful to fully understand what is going on. I found I could modify several of the examples and drop them into my own Ajax project. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get introduced to Ajax programming and could also use a primer on Javascript and CSS. I may probably buy another one other book on Ajax simply because it is still evolving and not standardized. Thus I feel sure there's more tricks to learn till AJAX hits all parts of the Internet. Worth reading + worth a buy and you will NOT be disappointed. Summary:

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Big Java

Publisher: Wiley
Authors: Cay S. Horstmann

ISBN: 0471697036
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Summary: I am Encouraged, but not the way that you think
This book sucks ... it starts out with the author trying to describe some concepts of java then he annoyingly refers other concepts to other chapters because the reader is not yet able to understand it (chapter 1)... which is ok so it starts out slow, then it seems like he lost patience or something and then he throws all these concepts and words at you(chapter 2), and he describes useless things which has little value to the main idea of programming ... it seems to me Java books have two approaches to teaching, one is to begin describing all the concepts of and vocab of java and one is like a fast track to programming, this book does neither. I had to buy this book for a computer programming class, like the other reader i had to constantly find other materials to try to understand Java, on the plus side i find it extremely encouraging such a poor book can be recommended by colleges and universities around the USA, after i learn Java maybe i can write a Java textbook too!

Summary: Great book.
This book is excellent for anyone wanting to learn Java. It has great examples that actually work, and it teaches in an easy to learn manner. It covers a wide range of topics which would take you from beginner to about the high edge of intermediate. I have read many Java books before this, this book is very well rounded compred to most, and in my opinion has offered the most knowledge thus far.

Summary: This is by far the best Java book I read.
This is by far the best Java book I read. The concepts and key points are are neatly categorised and also summarized at the end of each chapter. Ideal book for a non-programmer trying to learn Java.

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Hibernate in Action (In Action series)

Publisher: Manning Publications
Authors: Christian Bauer Gavin King

ISBN: 193239415X
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Summary: Great concepts, Worthless index, Questionable technology
The authors do a fine job explaining the concepts behind object relational mapping in general and Hibernate in particular. Too bad the book is absolutely crippled by its index. For instance, there is no entry for "discriminator" (or anything close to that), so to go back to that section where I positively recall reading about this term, I have to browse the whole book. Ridiculous. Furthermore, the following statement by the authors themselves throws this entire technology into question: "Retrieving persistent objects from the database is one of the most interesting (and complex) parts of working with Hibernate." If this is so complex, than the Java community has been sold a bill of goods, and its no wonder the exodus to Ruby is gaining momentum.

Summary: True to the Spirit of "In Action" Series. Comprehensive coverage of Hibernate 2.x.
Hibernate is an Object/Relational mapping framework that attempts to bridge the gap between Object-Oriented programming model and relational database model. In the past, many attempts have been made to bridge this gap or replace one with another, but the gap between the two is one of the hard facts of enterprise computing today. Hibernate is one such attempt that enjoys a lot of success in the community today.

Hibernate in Action, authored by "Christian Bauer" and "Gavin King" (Gavin, being the creator of hibernate), is one of the best books on this topic. Traditionally we have witnessed that the best book on a particular technology is not written by the creator of the technology themselves, but by authors who have the proficiency to explain it pragmatically. Gavin, breaks the shackles and contributes the best book for the technology he created.

The primary target audience is java developers who work with SQL based database systems and have struggled hard to bridge the gap themselves.

The book starts by explaining what "Object/Relational paradigm mismatch" is all about. The authors weigh this to be the prime motivation for any ORM implementation, and wish that the users understand this mismatch, before they jump-in believing that ORM is the magic bullet for all their problems.

The chapters "Introducing and Integrating hibernate", "Mapping persistent classes", "Working with persistent objects" and "Transactions, concurrency, and caching" introduces the basics for various aspects of hibernate. These chapters are the most beneficial part of the book and well exceed the book's cost.

The chapters "Advanced mapping concepts", "Retrieving objects efficiently", "Writing hibernate applications" and "Using the toolset" focus on the advanced concepts. These chapters are rather dry and are mostly useful for reference purposes only. So, if you get lost while reading these chapters, don't worry. It covers so many advanced concepts that not everything will fit into one's head in the first pass. If you frequently visit this section for reference while developing hibernate applications, you will start to appreciate this section slowly but steadily.

In my opinion, if you want just one book to learn and use hibernate for your next project, look no further.

But, don't forget, the next edition is just round the corner. It covers Hibernate 3.x and also includes full coverage of the EJB 3.0's sub specification called Java Persistence API (JPA). So, if you are not in any urgency, then you might want to wait, otherwise, go ahead and get this one for your bookshelf as soon as you can. You won't regret it.

Summary: Great for Hibernate, and pretty good for NHibernate too.
Great book about Hibernate. A good chunk of the book won't be useful to you if you're looking to use it with NHibernate, but the rest is relevent.

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