Amazon.co.uk: Murach's Beginning Java 2, JDK 5: Doug Lowe, Joel Murach, Andrea Steelman: Books

Paperback: 782 pages
Publisher: Murach (Mike) & Associates Inc. (Jan 2005)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1890774294
ISBN-13: 978-1890774295
Product Dimensions: 25.2 x 20.2 x 4.6 cm
Average Customer Review: (2 customer reviews)
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 385,545 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#47 in Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages > Java > Introductory

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Synopsis
As you would expect, this new JDK 5 edition of "Murach's Beginning Java 2" includes the most useful new features of Java 5.0, also known as version 1.5. That includes: the Scanner class; type-safe enumerations; enhanced for loops; typed collections; generics; autoboxing; the StringBuilder class. But we didn't just tack these new features onto the old book the way most authors do. Instead, to take advantage of these features and to make other significant improvements, our authors decided that they needed to re-engineer the book from start to finish. The result is a book that will help you learn Java 5.0 faster and better than ever, whether you're a programming novice or have years of programming experience. It is also a book that will take you to a new level of expertise. To help you learn faster, this edition uses the new Scanner class for getting user input in the first three sections of the book. This means that you'll be writing complete programs by the time you finish chapter 2. And you will be writing object-oriented programs with business classes and objects by the time you finish chapter 6. To take you to a new level of expertise: This Java 5.0 (AKA 1.5

) edition has expanded and enhanced the chapters on object-oriented programming, collections, exceptions, threads, and data access programming. In particular, this edition shows you how to use a three-tiered architecture to separate the business classes, presentation classes, and database classes of an application. It shows you practical techniques for populating business objects with data from files or databases. And it shows you how to use inheritance, polymorphism, interfaces, and the factory pattern in a way that is not only understandable but also useful in real-world applications.

First Sentence
In 1996, Sun Microsystems released a new programming language called Java. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index

2 Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Excellent for the novice, 24 Jun 2003

By	Thomas Paul (Plainview, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Murach's Beginning Java 2 (Paperback)

This is an excellent introduction to the Java programming language. This book has several good things about it that make it an excellent resource for the inexperienced programmer. First, it is simple and easy to follow. Second, it allows the inexperienced programmer to quickly start writing programs. Third, it covers only the basics avoiding anything that would make learning more difficult than necessary. The book works by concentrating on how things work. Sections are entitled, "How to work with the String class, " "How to catch exceptions, " etc. The book gives brief descriptions followed by practical examples.

However, the book needs to be updated. Although the cover says that it include version 1.4, only the CD has been updated, not the book itself. Inner classes are given brief mention and the discussion of local classes is reduced to a sentence. The Collection and Map frameworks are not mentioned at all. Only the Vector class is discussed and that is only given four pages. On the positive side, JDBC is discussed as well as file I/O and threads.

Overall this book is very good for the person with little or no programming experience wanting to get some practical knowledge of Java. Other books might provide more information and be more current but they are also more difficult to follow. You are unlikely to find another book that has as much hand holding as this book. If you want to learn Java and would prefer a book that will gently teach you the basics then this book would make an excellent choice.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Updated version contains too many errors, 14 May 2005

By	Thomas Paul (Plainview, NY USA) - See all my reviews

The earlier edition of this book was a well written tutorial for the beginner Java programmer but it was also in need of an update. The release of the JDK 5 edition of "Beginning Java 2" attempts to answer that need. The new edition is almost 100 pages longer and the extra pages have been used to give greater detail on object oriented programming and to cover some of the new additions to the language such as generics. Unfortunately, the new edition contains too many mistakes and is less well organized than its predecessor.

A few examples of mistakes in the book will explain my complaints. In the discussion of abstract classes, the book tells us that subclasses of an abstract class must override all the abstract methods of the parent class. This, of course, is not true if the child class is also abstract. In the discussion of threads, the book explains synchronization of methods using a method that does not need to be synchronized. The explanation makes it appear that method variables are shared by threads. The book tells us that primitives are passed by value and objects are passed by reference. Of course, Java always passes by value although the value passed may be a reference. There are also problems with the sequence in which language features are introduced. For example, int and double are introduced early, but the reader must wait forty pages to discover that there are other primitive data types.

Overall, the new release of Beginning Java 2 represents a step backward in the Murach family of books. This book could have used much more careful editing and a better sequence of topics. If you are looking for a tutorial or textbook I can not recommend this edition.

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