Wanted: a good mid-level Java book

[J Bird]

I've perused Amazon and the JavaRanch Bunkhouse library, but can't find the book I'm looking for. There are plenty of Java books covering the basics of arrays, types, classes, methods, etc. but they only touch, if at all, the more advanced topics. I'm looking for ONE good book that covers the basics of EJBs, design patterns, frameworks, reflection, annotations, etc. and maybe tools like ant. There are lots of books that cover each of these subjects in detail, but none that I have found that gives a basic-to-mid-level coverage of all these topics in one Book. Anyone know of such a book?

[Stephan van Hulst]

Have you already read Joshua Bloch's Effective Java?

Welcome to CodeRanch!

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome again.

I don't think EJ covers all the topics mentioned. I am not convinced you will find one book which covers all of them. Not unless it has about 4000 pages. I am also not convinced that a beginner's approach to things like EJBs is necessarily a good thing. You end up scratching the surface and not learning enough depth to program safely.

[J. Kevin Robbins]

I like Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development. It doesn't cover everything in your list, but it's close.

I actually have the companion book, Expert One-on-One J2EE Development without EJB since we don't use EJB's in our environment.

[J. Kevin Robbins]

And welcome to the Ranch!

[J Bird]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome!

I'll check out the books links, thank you. No, no 4,000 page book for me, I've had enough of technical tomes that are full of fluff. I love the Visual QuickStart Guides, they are thin books that get right to the point covering topics like C++, XML, SQL, MySQL, etc. They have two for Java, but they're 1998 and 2002 printings. Maybe I'll put one together if I can't find something! I'll go muck some JavaRanch stalls now.

[Campbell Ritchie]

In my opinion the best book I have seen is Core JavaII by Horstmann and Cornell. Unfortunately I think the most recent edition covers Java7. Horstmann has written two books covering Java8, one for beginners and one for experienced people, but I haven't read either.

[Junilu Lacar]

J. Kevin Robbins wrote:I like Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development. It doesn't cover everything in your list, but it's close.

I actually have the companion book, Expert One-on-One J2EE Development without EJB since we don't use EJB's in our environment.

Wow, talk about going retro. These books came out about the same time as Spring. I think the latter one is mostly what the first release of Spring was based on. You might want to get one of the newer books about Spring instead of these oldies. It's been years since I last cracked either of my copies of these open. Just showing my hoarder tendencies now...

[Jesper de Jong]

Stephan van Hulst wrote:Have you already read Joshua Bloch's Effective Java?

That book is not really about the things in your list, but it is a must-read book for every Java programmer who is a bit further than beginner level. It shows you many pitfalls in the Java programming language and teaches you best practices for designing programs.

[J. Kevin Robbins]

Junilu Lacar wrote:

J. Kevin Robbins wrote:I like Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development. It doesn't cover everything in your list, but it's close.

I actually have the companion book, Expert One-on-One J2EE Development without EJB since we don't use EJB's in our environment.

Wow, talk about going retro. These books came out about the same time as Spring. I think the latter one is mostly what the first release of Spring was based on. You might want to get one of the newer books about Spring instead of these oldies. It's been years since I last cracked either of my copies of these open. Just showing my hoarder tendencies now...

Yeah, mine says 2004 so it's a bit dated. I don't use Spring, I got the book because it seems like the next step up in complexity from HFSJ. It talks about architecture and advanced exception handling which is the main reason I purchased it. I've avoided Spring so far; IOC is one of those topics that makes my head hurt.