Java: A Beginner's Guide 6th Edition

A little background:Started programming as a child on my family's Mac IIGS. I enjoyed freaking my mom out when I would make the computer count forever via an infinate loop.I self taught myself to program on my TI 83 in middle school, html and adobe photoshop in highschool, css in college, Perl for bioinformatics perposes.Skip to now... realizing that somewhere along the line I forgot about my love to program soI self taught myself begginers C++ using TheNewBoston's Youtube tutorial videos.To sum it all up, I've a sporadic programming background... but nothing substantial in terms of profession/life goals..Until this book.This book teaches at the perfect speed, and provides examples in a logical "here is the newbie way that works... but here is a better way...and yet here is an even BETTER way!". So you learn in a very easy step by step way.Treat this book as you would any math book, and work out EVERY SINGLE example, as well as try to work out what the console output would look like in your head or on paper and check it against the System.out provided (in the text)And then, after a few chapters, go back and try to do the 'Try This' programs and retake the quizes to keep the info fresh, and see where your streths and weeknesses lie.Other notes:I use JavaFX (IntelliJ IDEA) because I plan to eventually make a GUI program.I believe having a beginners knowledge in c++ has made me understand Java on a deeper level than those without. And this background has enabled me to learn Java faster and more efficiently.If you have 2 weeks free, I suggest you look up TheNewBoston on youtube and watch his c++ videos at least up until #35 while you wait for this book to arrive, and you will have a better understanding when you start to read this book.I am also following along with a free "First Course in Java" that is availble online from Berkley College. It's excellent & I highly recomend it!Where I go from here:1. Finish the book & Berkley Course homework/quizesStudy for OCA Java SE 7 Programmer I (Exam 1Z0-803) with:2. (Liguori, Finegan) Oca Java Se 7 Programmer I Study Guide3. (Sierra, Bates) OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II (Study vol 1 OCA of 2)4. Take Exam 1Z0-803 to be Certified OCAJP 75.? Maybe...(Ganesh, Sharma) Oracle Certified Professional Java SE 7 Programmer Exams 1Z0-804 and 1Z0-805: A Comprehensive OCPJP 7 Certification Guide6. (Sierra, Bates) OCA/OCP Java SE 7 Programmer I & II (Study vol 2 OCP of 2)7. Take Exam 1Z0-804 to be Certified OCPJP 7Hope this helps someone in finding their way, and good luck!

Great book for leaning Java. This book backs up concepts introduced with clear and logical examples. Then it takes those examples and expands on them with new concepts and makes the program more and more complicated over time. This approach really works well for learning. Some lazy learners may complain about its aggressiveness in the early chapters because some of the sample programs can hurt your brain if you're new to programming. For example there was a program that output "2 to the power of n is ____". This program consisted of a decrementing while loop nested within an incriminating for loop. The while loop acted as a counter for each iteration of each iteration. (no I didn't just typo, I meant to repeat myself) and to be honest, it took a while to sink in. I even had to resort to writing out the program on paper and marking exactly how each variable changed with each iteration of each loop. That was a tough one for chapter 2 but this made me think like a computer... or should I say, like a programmer. This book is excellent! Bottom line is this, you can't puree every concept into baby food for easy consumption but this book does it's best and handles the challenging material better than most. I don't think you could get an "easier" book that actually taught you everything.

Pros:Clear explanationsSmall examples of (nearly) everythingGood chapter progressionSelf-testCode examples available for downloadExamples build upon themselvesCanonical and practical ways of doing things explainedHow things changed explainedCopiously commented codeCode is made to run in a simple editor (like Notepad) and from the command line.ConsSamples code is presented as images, at times too tiny too readDownloaded code samples lump all samples together by chapterGraphics are touched upon, and explained at a blistering speed.Herb Schildt is an excellent author, who explains code well, in a few languages. He shows no bias, but uses c++ here for comparison at the beginning, and through touts java's advantages.This book is not for beginner's to programming, as programming concepts are not explained. Though, to someone who understands the concepts (or can figure them out easily, by example) this is a great book. Almost everything has a short, complete, working sample, and the all but a few advanced keywords are explained in detail. By the time you're done with the book, you;re likely to be able to code in java (albeit simple stuff) if you typed in all the samples. and worked through the self-tests.The code samples are a major part of the book. I took advantage of dual screen to review the e-book on one screen and type and rest in the other. This also brought a problem to the fore, and that is the code examples are embedded as images! As you may know, Kindle does not scale images with the text, so tiny is tiny. I'm using a 20" screen @1600x1900 and could not read a lot of the text without squinting or moving closer than usual. Using the web kindle helped in some cases but no much. The on screen magnifier can help a lot. Perhaps turning the screen itself would have helped, but that's lot of work! Ultimately, that's why i rated this as 4 stars instead of 5.Chapter 16, Swing has a slightly different style than the other chapters, most notably, the examples show results before the code samples. It's probably due to being added in a later edition of the book. It and Chapter 17, JavaFX are rushed, but it isn't really the main part of the book. As he points out, they really need a book of their own, but he touched upon them here. Nice.From the editing, i get the feeling this book was meant for print and simply ebook-ified with little effort. That's explain the code images, the odd placement of some of the "Ask the Experts" sections, and weird spacing here and there. This doesn't really affect the quality of the work, but a shoddy job from Oracle Press.I looked at 2 other book on Java. Head First Java, 2nd Edition and Learning Java. The former's sign to noise ration is too low and is way out of date. The latter does not have complete samples, has an odd ordering of chapters, and gets too complex too quickly. Seems better for a review. I got got this one next and loved it. Third one's a charm, eh?