Eclipse In Action
by
David Gallardo, Ed Burnette, Robert McGovern
Manning Publications
7th edition
May 2003
380 pages
Reviewed by Corey McGlone, June 2003
(8 of 10)
For anyone that doesn't know about it, Eclipse is an IDE that is freely available and is usable for really just about anything. It's designed for versatility and it succeeds brilliantly. Of course, with increased versatility usually comes increased complexity. Eclipse In Action is written with Java developers in mind and leads you through the major functionality and extensibility of the IDE through in depth examples. The examples are great and have a nice depth (they don't feel as contrived as most examples in books like this). This has some definite benefits -- you feel like you're getting real-life experience by doing examples and it makes the book smoother to read front to back. However, there is a drawback -- this book doesn't always make a handy reference to put on the shelf. To figure out how something works, sometimes I find myself looking back a chapter or two to see how the example works so that I can work forward. I found that this book lent itself to being read straight through rather than picking put chapters to read individually. I found the book easy and enjoyable to read, although you'll probably want to be sitting in front of your computer working along to get the most out of it. The technical information is dead on and I found few mistakes -- the editing is done very well. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone that wants to get the most out of Eclipse.