Using the cookbook

[Gosia Wittemann]

I am curious about the best way to use the Cookbook. I guess it comes very handy while writing specific tasks, but would you also recommend actually "studying" it? I mean reading from cover to cover with IDE open and retyping the examples, for someone at approx. SCJP level?

[Herb Schildt]

Hi Gosia,

My cookbook is a solution-oriented resource that provides hands-on practical solutions to many common Java programming tasks. Specifically, the kinds of tasks that you will encounter when writing commerical Java code. It is not a tutorial on the Java language, for example.

In general, the cookbook fills a unique spot in my line of Java programming books.

Here are my current Java books:

. Java: A Beginner's Guide
. Java: The Complete Reference
. Swing: A Beginner's Guide
. The Art of Java
. Herb Schildt's Java Programming Cookbook

To learn Java I recommend "Java: A Beginner's Guide". This is my step-by-step Java tutorial.

Then, I recommend "Java; The Complete Reference". This is a large, in-depth book on Java. It is designed to be lasting resource for the Java programmer.

For details on Swing, I recommend my "Swing; A Beginner's Guide". Although its called a "Beginner's Guide", it presents a very solid look at Swing.

Next is the "Art of Java", which I co-authored with James Holmes.

My latest Java book is my cookbook. If you read my new commentary on my website, you will see that its a book that I had been wanting to write for a long time.
[ December 11, 2007: Message edited by: Herb Schildt ]