Resent-Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 18:03:02 -0500
From: Dave Dittrich <dittrich@cac.washington.edu>
Message-Id: <9512272255.AA29066@red3.cac.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: java books
To: java-linux@java.blackdown.org
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 14:55:32 -0800 (PST)
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I promised I'd follow up on this after stopping at the bookstore(s).
This is probably (certainly?) heavily opinion laden, but then it is
your money to spend as you wish!

> > >Sun's official series of Java books is in the production pipeline at
> > >Addison-Wesley.
> > ><p>
> > >O'Reilly Associates is working on its own series of Java books in
> > >cooperation with Sun.
> > ><p>
> 
> A more detailed list of these books is avialable at:
> 
> 	http://www.city-net.com/~krom/java-faq.html#5.5
> 
> > >***Is there anything out on paper now?***
> > 
> > Yes!  Browing the local Bookstop/Barnes & Noble/Borders came up with 3 books:
> > 1 called 'Java in 60 minutes' that looked like a pretty strict syntactic description
> 
> I am currently reviewing a copy of the Addison-Wesley book "The
> Java(tm) API" by James Gosling, Frank Yellin, Tim Linholm, et al.  It
> sounds like a competitor to the "Java in 60 minutes" book.  Once I
> take a look at "Java in 60 minutes", I'll post something comparing the
> two (my guess is that the guys at Sun who developed Java will do a
> better job documenting the API than whoever wrote "Java in 60
> minutes")

I'd say that "Java in 60 minutes" may take you 60 minutes to read, but
won't teach you how to program in Java in 60 minutes (surprise,
surprise!)  It looks to me like "Java in 60 minutes" is one of the
many attempts be first to market with a book on a hot topic.  It
didn't seem to include much more than you can find right now on the
Web, including lots of text that looks like it was lifted straight out
of the Java Language Specification
(http://java.sun.com/JDK-beta2/psfiles/javaspec.ps).

Same thing with "Java!", only the latter goes into much more detail on
object oriented programming concepts, etc.  Someone pointed me to
another text book that is equally as good at covering data/method
abstraction and other object oriented programming concepts, which is
"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Abelson,
Sussman and Sussman (MIT Press).  If anyone has any other favorites on
OOD/OOP, it would be good to include references to them in the book
section of the FAQ.

Both "Java in 60 minutes" and "Java!" rely heavily on the text of the
Java Language Specification and on the online version of the Java API
documentation (http://java.sun.com/JDK-beta2/api/packages.html), which
are both available for free on the net.

Personally, I ordered a copy of "Hooked on Java"
(http://www.aw.com/devpress/java/index.html) sight unseen, mostly
based on the fact that it seems to cover the same ground as these two
books, only based on the newer JDK and written by folks from Sun (more
up to date information, more authoritative sources, better reputation
for book quality, etc.)

> > 1 by Tim Ritchey called 'Java!' that included a CD-ROM
> 
> I didn't look closely enough at this book when I saw it to see if it
> covered the old Alpha release or the newer Beta.  If its the former,
> I'd wait until the next pressing to spend time/money on it.

As someone pointed out, this covers the Alpha API.  Looks to me like
New Riders should really be named "Early Writers" as this is the
second book that I've seen from them that really should have been a
second-to-last-draft, not a book-in-print.  I'm going to wait to spend
my ~$45 on the second pressing (if I buy it at all), since it should
be the real keeper.  [Hint to anyone from New Riders who reads this...
Give folks a cheap upgrade to the second pressing, or run the risk of
gaining a reputation, with me at least, of jumping the gun for the
sake of profit;  I'd rather not buy a book from you than to have to buy
it twice.]

By the way... The CD-ROM include with "Java!" is for Windows NT only.

I'd say the second pressing of "Java!" will likely rival the other
books that will come out around the same time as the Prentice Hall
books (which are being authored by Sun folks) but I'm going to wait to
see.

-- 
Dave Dittrich                  Client Services, Computing & Communications
dittrich@cac.washington.edu    University of Washington

<a href="http://www.washington.edu/People/dad/">
Dave Dittrich / dittrich@cac.washington.edu</a>