The book is divided into six sections and a collection of useful appendices. Section II introduces programming basics including variables and constants, strings, conditional tests, loops and then objects and inheritance. By the halfway point you are building a simple visual interface using Swing and the Abstract Windowing Interface--though you will have to wait a couple of hours before you learn how to make it do something.

Sams Teach Yourself Java 2 in 24 Hours probably won't unless you're already a fairly good programmer in another language. But if you worked through it assiduously you would have a basic understanding of the Java language. What you won't have is the experience which makes it useful.

However, the example programs Cadenhead works you through are easily adapted and extended, which provides a starting point for practice. Overall, this is the best introduction to Java for complete beginners this reviewer has seen. --Steve Patient --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Sams Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours is a step-by-step tutorial broken up into 24 short, easy one-hour chapters. It starts out at a lower level than Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days, and takes things at a slower pace, focusing on key programming concepts and essential Java basics. The basic structure of the book and many of its examples remain the same in this new edition, but the author makes use of dozens of reader comments to make improvements to explanatory text and example programs. Additionally, fresh material will cover new components of Java 2, including Java Foundation Classes, Java2D classes for two-dimensional image manipulation, and JavaBeans--a feature of Java 1.1 that has become a key part of Java programming.