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Your search returned 2 matching documents
JavaScript for Programmers (Deitel Developer)
by
Paul J. Deitel, Harvey M. Deitel
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Prentice Hall PTR
1 edition
March 2009
448 pages
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Reviewed by Campbell Ritchie, April 2009
        (8 of 10)
Before buying, go to the Deitel website (www.deitel.com) and see whether there are text samples (there weren't when I reviewed the book). Deitel books have their own characteristic style which some people (myself included) like and others detest. Much of it consists of showing examples of the technique, and explaining how it works, line by line. I personally find this an effective way to learn.
As well as JavaScript, the book covers introductory XHTML, style sheets (CSS), XML and rich internet applications with AJAX.
The examples are clear, simple, and easy to understand; I often learn by copying and changing them. The book is clearly printed in greyscale and sturdily bound. I have even dropped Deitel books in the street without losing pages! I only found 1 misprint. It is generously supplied with links to other resources, and appears to be up to date.
The "Programmer" books appear to be taken from the corresponding "How To Program" books, with some of the simpler stuff taken out; they assume a "programmer" knows what a browser is, and (see page 307) what an IEEE785 number is! This book appears to be the "client-side" half of a "How To" book. Many of the twee drawings of ants have gone, too, and unfortunately there are no exercises at the end of the chapters.
I recommend buyers look at the "How To" book, ISBN 0131752421, and see how it compares for value for money.
More info at Amazon.com
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Java for Programmers (Deitel Developer)
by
Paul J. Deitel, Harvey M. Deitel,
Paul J. Deitel, Harvey M. Deitel
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Prentice Hall PTR
1 edition
February 2009
1200 pages
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Reviewed by Campbell Ritchie, March 2009
(8 of 10)
This book follows the winning formula which all Deitel books use; some people (myself included) like the Deitel style and others don't. Nil desperandum: you can probably find sample chapters at www.Deitel.com. Like all Deitel books, it is large and provides lots of pages for your $!
I enjoyed reading it. The book follows the same pattern as its "How to Program" stable-mate, but lacks some of the beginner's material, so it is quicker to read. Unfortunately the exercises at the ends of chapters, and some of the larger code examples (e.g. the messenger) have gone too.
It is very clear to read, covering all the basics, and introductions to Swing, regular expressions, generics, and threading. Threading can only be handled briefly in a general book and those wanting more detail should look for Brian Goetz's book. Similarly a full handling of websites or databases would require another book.
Exception handling is well covered, but I would have preferred to see more about preconditions and postconditions, and how to maintain a class invariate.
The book has been updated to Java 6 and includes SwingWorker and the Desktop interface. There are also chapters about interfacing with networks, databases (MySQL rather than Derby) Ajax, Java server Faces and Web services.
Those who like a traditional pedagogic introduction to a wide range of Java work, and who like the style, will find this book a great asset; raw beginners might prefer the "How To" book.
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More info at Amazon.com
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Prentice Hall PTR
second edition
April 2011
1168 pages
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Reviewed by Wouter Oet, July 2011
(4 of 10)
Java for Programmers claims to be a book for the professional programmer. I find this odd since the first 300 pages (out of 1168) are about how to program in Java. If the target group is professionals then remove that bit or if it also includes people that are new to Java or programming in general then 300 pages isn't nearly enough.
The book covers the following topics: Java APIs, Object-Oriented Programming, Database, SQL, JDBC, JavaDB/Apache Derby/MySQL, Networking, JavaServer Faces 2.0, AJAX-Enabled Web Application, Web Services, Generics, Collections, Files, Exception Handling, Multithreading, Swing Graphical User Interfaces, Graphics/Java 2D, Multimedia, OOD/UML ATM Case Study, Debugger and an online introduction to Android App Development. When I saw this list I was quite surprised. For almost each of these topics you can pick up a book of the same size. I was skeptic about how they managed to fit all that information in there.
The main reason I decided to review this book was that it also claimed to cover Java SE 7.Unfortunately these claims have not been totally fulfilled. There is nothing about NIO 2.0 (file-handling), the fork-join framework and binary integral literals and underscores in numeric literals.
The book feels like a big collection of enhanced tutorials. The chapters allow you to write an example program but if you deviate only slightly you'll need to look up materials only as it isn't in the book. The authors decided to use Netbeans as tool to generate code and directory structures. I don't use Netbeans so that was quite annoying. Using Maven it would have been possible to generate code and support for your favorite IDE.
Some of the code examples in this book are just wrong. Improper closing of resources, excessive usage of System.out.printf(), usage of System.exit(1) in exception blocks and no seperation between Model, View & Controller for example.
This book tries to cover to much and therefore fails to properly cover the topics. The quality of the chapters isn't great. If you want to know little about a lot of topics then this is a great book, otherwise google for an tutorial about your topic of choice or pick up a book specific for that topic.
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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.
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