Amazon.co.uk Review
Most programmers want to be better than they are and, while there are many excellent books on Java, there are few good guides to Java programming style. This one is aimed at those with some Java programming experience and aspirations to becoming a Java guru. To this end, Haggar presents you with code snippets intended to accomplish specific tasks and he invites you to predict the results.
This approach is designed to illustrate gotchas, some of which are surprisingly subtle. You use the book interactively: hence the affected decision to use the word Praxis (an archaic version of practice) to differentiate the 68 sections. In Objects and Equality Praxis, Haggar illustrates the differences between using on primitive integer values and on integer references. He then proceeds to show how making assumptions about the way the "equals" method works can cause even stranger--yet still legal--behaviours.
Basically, Peter Haggar is teaching you not to make assumptions about the way Java does things. A neat example is the Notify All methods which ensures all waiting threads are woken up. Threads activity is often dependent on the condition of other threads. You might reasonably assume Notify All wakes threads in priority order--but it doesn't. Its action is JVM-dependent.
Object- oriented programming is supposed to remove the need to know what's happening behind the scenes--but this is the real world, not a theoretical one. Understanding Java's underpinnings will make you a faster, more efficient, more highly paid programmer and newbies will sit beneath your swivel chair awaiting wisdom. --Steve Patient
Book Description
This book does for Java what Scott Meyers' classic Effective C++ did for C++- identifies the key practices and rules that enable good developers to become great developers. IBM Java expert Peter Haggar brings together 68 rules for writing better Java 2 code, complete with insightful discussions and real-world examples. These are the "rules of thumb" expert developers have discovered- guidelines that consistently lead to clear, correct, and efficient code. Haggar focuses on the key issues virtually every Java developer faces, from general techniques (such as when to use polymorphism and when not to use method overloading); to working with objects, exception handling, performance, multithreading, classes, interfaces, and beyond. Haggar has a remarkable talent for crystallizing a problem and solution, and communicating it in words and code. The result- a book that can help any Java developer get dramatically better results -- fast.
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