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Effective Java (Java Series)
 
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Effective Java (Java Series) (Paperback)

by Joshua Bloch (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
RRP: £30.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Prentice Hall (13 Jun 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0201310058
  • ISBN-13: 978-0201310054
  • Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 18.6 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 173,701 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
You may think you're a hot Java programmer, but you aren't perfect--yet. Josh Bloch is one of the Java core architects and in Effective Java Programming Language Guide provides a Java master class.

Bloch provides 57 items (did he reject "varieties"?) grouped by subject. Each item highlights a "gotcha", expands on best practice or argues for deprecating a common practice. For example, among the gotchas, he points out problems with relying on finalisers, whose implementation varies from one JVM to another and may not run at all under some circumstances.

Best practice also gets a lot of airing. A neat example is not relying on Java's default object serialisation API, which--among other problems--can cause the object to break if you make any changes. This can result in a code maintenance nightmare. In the last category he discusses the string concatenation, "+". Using this can be a hundred times slower than appending to a StringBuffer. No problem for a one-off string but using it repeatedly can cripple performance.

Many of the items discussed are fairly trivial, such as returning zero rather than null for zero length arrays or avoiding the use of floats when you need precise answers--perhaps they were thrown in to make the magic "57"--but despite these Effective Java Programming Language Guide offers a fascinating insight into Java's architecture and solid, easily assimilated guidance on its effective usage.

Unlike most books for programmers, this is one you really will find difficult to put down. Every serious Java programmer should read it. --Steve Patient

Product Description

A new edition of this title is available, ISBN-10: 0321356683 ISBN-13: 9780321356680



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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing, 27 Jun 2004
By Alberto Gemin (St. Paul-de-Vence France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
It has been an absolute pleasure to read this no-nonsense collection of observations and suggestions.

The author is extremely knowledgeable and articulates his points in a clear, concise and logical presentation, which is a rare characteristic in today's overflowed and low-quality offer of "how-to-become-a-guru" manuals.

The Collections framework is clearly the author's backyard and you will learn about implementation details and rationales that you will not easily find anywhere else.

What I found most useful in the analysis of the various Java aspects was the author's perspective, which is based on the pros and cons of implementation choices, and strongly focused on API construction. Unless you work alone and deliver complete applications, you will define, design and implement an API sooner or later, maybe even without realizing it. With the help from this book you will most certainly design a robust, maintainable and useful API.

I also liked the practical approach that sometimes goes against OO principles: for example, just because Java embraced the OO philosophy does not mean that inheritance is the only way to go. Composition, static factories, singletons, immutable classes and some good old procedural programming are discussed in depth.

Another brilliant characteristic of this guide (and I would like to especially thank the author for this) is that although there are plenty of snippets to illustrate concepts, these are just skeletons, never longer than few lines and therefore they do not force you to waste your time and divert your attention from the core issue by analyzing pages over pages of code when maybe only one line could have served the purpose.

I would say that this book finds its best audience in the experienced developer/architect who does not have a specific Java expertise but is very comfortable with some other programming language. However, everyone can benefit from in-depth explanations of often misunderstood subtleties like the "equals()", "hashCode()", "clone()" or "compareTo()" contracts. Or serialization: are you sure you master it?

You don't need a profound Java working experience to immediately grasp some concepts; I found that this guide was an excellent companion in my learning of Java, you can start reading it from day 0, and you will get back to it every time you want to know more about a new concept.

The best praise I can say about "Effective Java" is that in my opinion only a handful of experts in the whole Java community could rightfully say "This book shall not teach me no thing", and then I would like to work with these people.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An essential and useful guide to common java idioms, 24 Sep 2001
By A Customer
This book is a useful guide to common java idioms and practices. It contains essential advice that most people will only learn through years of experience with Java. Personally I prefer to learn from other people's mistakes and this book offers a wealth of mistakes to avoid and lessons to learn.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars If you can program Java, learn how to do it well, 4 April 2002
By A Customer
This book provides maximum value, is easily readable, and very concise. High value per line. That's just what your code will give if you follow the guidelines contained here.
The format is simple, providing 57 distinct items of advice. Each item is small, some are obvious, some more complex. Even the obvious ones are valuable for their formalisation of simple approaches (the "why" to add to your "how").
It is so well written that it can be read cover-to-cover (a rarity in computer books for me), and then dipped into as a reference as and when an item becomes pertinent.
This is not a book to learn to program Java, but one to help experienced programmers write more effective Java. I doubt there is a Java programmer anywhere who would not benefit from some of the items.
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