The Java Programming Language: Amazon.ca: Ken Arnold, James Gosling: Books

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From Amazon

Written by several of Java's inventors, The Java Programming Language, Third Edition provides a nearly indispensable guide to basic and advanced features in today's hottest programming language. Perfect for the intermediate or advanced developer, this book delivers a wealth of information on how to do more with Java. The first sections of this title provide a nicely compact tour of Java basics. If you're a beginner, you'll get a glimpse of the fundamentals of Java quickly. Most of this new edition has the more experienced reader in mind. Subsequent chapters delve into basic and advanced language features of what can be done with classes, interfaces and other design features in Java. The authors' explanations are notably clear and never pedantic. Many examples are illustrated using simple mathematical problems, and the class design samples for inheritance and interfaces all use comprehensible class names and concepts.

This book is just outstanding when it comes to class design. This title will definitely let any reader do more with classes, whether you want to make use of such features as "anonymous inner classes", reflection (for loading classes dynamically), or do more with interfaces (including extending interfaces, and even tricks to change data members in interfaces).

Standout sections here include a complete guide to Java language statements, including keywords, literals and support for Unicode. Later sections feature a nicely clear explanation of Java's complicated I/O classes, a fine tutorial on threading and a solid introduction to using Java's collection classes. The book closes with a tour of some additional "core" Java packages that are available in the language.

In all, this up-to-the-minute guide to some of the more complex features in today's Java fills a valuable niche for any Java developer. Besides providing a glimpse into what the Java team at Sun is up to, this authoritative resource can help you master the finer points of class design, as well as make the most out of newly added features in the new JDK 1.3 standard. --Richard Dragan, Amazon.com

Topics covered: Quickstart overview of Java, class and object design in Java, access control, construction and initialisation, static methods, method overloading, class inheritance, redefining members, the protected keyword, the strictfp keyword and floating point processing, cloning objects, interfaces (constants, methods and modifiers), extending interfaces, marker interfaces, nested classes and interfaces (including static nested types, inner classes and anonymous inner classes), tokens, operators and expressions in Java, literals, keywords, operator precedence, control flow, Java exception handling, exception classes, the String and StringBuffer classes, threads, synchronisation APIs and techniques (scheduling, thread groups and thread local storage), the wrapper classes for Number types, Java reflection, loading classes, garbage collection (GC algorithms, finalisation and reachability states), packages, JavaDoc documentation tags, tour of Java I/O stream classes, serialisation techniques, new and legacy Java collections, misc. utility classes, system programming with properties, processes and JVM shutdown; internationalisation and localisation techniques, and tour of additional Java core packages. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Book Description

Written for programmers who have had experience with object-oriented programming, this book explains the design motivation of JDK 1.1 and 1.2 and the tradeoffs involved in using specific features. The second edition has increased coverage of classes: extending classes, tokens, operators and expressions, I/O utilities, programming with types, native methods, and new packages which are all included with JDK 1.1 and 1.2. .

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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews

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4.1 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Prompt delivery, Sep 22 2010

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Elena - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Java™ Programming Language (Paperback)

The book was ordered for someone else, so no comments on its contents. All I was worried about was to get it in time, and the delivery was very prompt. Many thanks.

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5.0 out of 5 stars the best intermediate to advanced java book to date, May 25 2004

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Robert (Torrance, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Java(TM) Programming Language (Paperback)

I'm disappointed with many of the low rated comments, this book is not for beginners, its an intermediate to advanced text. When you read the description it states: "Most of this new edition has the more experienced reader in mind".

I started out with this book in college, it was assigned reading and I hated it, I had to read each page twice. But as I got more proficient with java and wanted to learn all the fine points, I couldn't find another book out there that delves into the core of the language as well as this book does. Most java books out there spend half the book discussing swing and the api classes, but this book discusses the language itself. If you're a software engineer especially, the most difficultly you'll have is debugging complicated code, you'll need to have a good understanding of how java works under the hood.

This book was invaluable to me at work, because I didn't really understand why certain variables weren't getting updated, until I read that unless you specify them as volatile, a class will keep a cached copy of them. I had problems with the order of initialization of certain variables in a subclass, and then I read that top most super class gets instantiated first, then its subclass, on down the line, fields first, then the constructor guts.

You can assume that any book written by the creator(s) of a language wont be introductory, but will give you an in depth look at the finer points of the language that other, more cursory books, gloss over.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Good for experienced user, not for beginners, May 13 2004

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J. YU "EasternTiger" (Detroit, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Java(TM) Programming Language (Paperback)

This is the best book by far to explain Java itself, concise and clear cut, but don't expect to get much out of it if you haven't done any Java coding or are just getting started. After you code Java seriously for a while, you'll find this book beautiful.

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