* Welcome Jim Waldo

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

This week, we're delighted to have James Waldo helping to answer questions about the new book Java: The Good Parts. See the table of contents online.

The promotion starts Tuesday, July 5th 2011 and will end on Friday, July 8th 2011.

We'll be selecting four random posters in this forum to win a free copy of the book provided by the publisher, O'Reilly.

Please see the Book Promotion page to ensure your best chances at winning!

As an added bonus, O'Reilly has offered a chance to win a free pass to OSCON Java conference this week! Two winners will be randomly selected for a free pass for the first event about open source Java.

Details:
OSCON Java 2011 • July 25-27, Portland, OR
Open source is the heartbeat of Java. See what's hot and learn from in-depth sessions & tutorials about Java 7, JVM, Android development and more.
oscon.com/java

And if you don't win, they are offering a CodeRanch Exclusive: Use code OS11CR to save 20% on all conference passes


Posts in this welcome thread are not eligible for the drawing.

[sandeep lokhande]

Welcome James Waldo

[Adam Outler]

Welcome to the site... if your book contains detailed information on using SwingWorker, im all over it.

Btw... the link above is invalid.

[question removed]

[Bear Bibeault]

Welcome, James.

[Jeff Ishar]

Welcome James

[lokesh sree]

Hi James,

Welcome to Java Ranch.

[Mahesh Panchananam]

Hi James, Hearty welcome...

[Justin Filmer]

Welcome, James Waldo!

This seems to be an interesting book. I saw this review on Amazon which may help people who are thinking about buying:
"If you are already somewhat familiar with Java and need a good book to motivate you a little and reinforce good practices, this is a great choice. The sections on exceptions and interfaces are superb for nearly any Java programmer to read, while the more advanced topics can serve as either reinforcement of good design principles, or as an introduction to those topics, for someone wanting to know more about how and why they are in Java in the first place.

The book is also written in an effective, friendly (and at times hilariously sarcastic) tone."

Hope to hear some great conversations from you!

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

Welcome James Waldo ! I have seen your book overview in amazon, looks interesting!

[sandeep sankalapur]

Hi James Waldo.., Looking forward for your book.., I wish all the success for your book

[Jim Waldo]

Thanks the the welcome-- I've been a fan of the JavaRanch crew (herd?) ever since running across some of them at an early JavaOne (back when it was a technical conference...).

One correction-- I don't know where the "James" came from (probably my tax forms), but I go by "Jim". I've always felt that there is only one "James" associated with Java, and I'm not him.

Looking forward to the week, and the discussions...

[sandeep sankalapur]

Hey Jim Waldo welcome.., sorry fr the James

[Citra Dil]

"Java: The Good Parts" , The book and the title looks interesting.

[Rob Spoor]

Jim Waldo wrote:Thanks the the welcome

There he is!

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself )

Welcome Jim!

[Stephan van Hulst]

Hi Jim, thanks for coming over!

[Bill Johnston]

Welcome James. I read the TOC and intro and it sounds like a very useful book. I also happen to agree that the language - as all languages, including human ones - has accumulated redundancies and unneeded additions, as well as mistakes. But it remains a great language. Perhaps, hopefully your book will help direct programmers away from that stuff.

[Jim Waldo]

Well, we should also realize that one person's incredibly useful feature is another person's swill.

For example, I've never liked the programming model for J2EE-- all the getters and setters violate the object abstraction, and the whole three-tier architecture is something I find confining and inflexible. But I don't write database-backed enterprise applications; if I did I'd probably love J2EE (well, maybe not love, but at least have more appreciation for it). I fought the addition of generics (or, at least, the particular way generics were added) for a long time, and while I still don't like the compile-time type system being different from the runtime type system, I've found that generics are useful.

There are very few places in Java or its libraries that are badly designed; the community process (and a bunch of very talented engineers, both inside of the Java engineering organization and from other companies) made sure that didn't happen. What may be lacking is an overall design; some parts of the language and libraries don't conceptually play well with other parts. Part of what I argue for in the book is that "good" is a relative term, in that you have to specify "good for what".

[Bill Johnston]

Jim,

I'm going to open up a new topic, because I want to reply to your last post, but this really isn't the place for that ;)

[Sid Singh]

Hi James,

Congrats to you for writing such a wonderful book as whatever i could read from the preview available i found it quite interesting.

I have a question from you that how you got motivated to write such a book as it is quite a bit off league from the rest available out there.

Thanks
Siddharth

[Rafael Morales]

Good welcome Waldo, and in spanish my native language Bienvenido Waldo, excelente tenerte por aquí

[Jim Waldo]

Sid Singh wrote:Hi James,

I have a question from you that how you got motivated to write such a book as it is quite a bit off league from the rest available out there.

Thanks
Siddharth

Hi Sid--

There were a mixture of motivations. One of the simplest is that I was asked-- the folks at O'Reilly, after the publication of Javascript: the good parts thought that doing the same sort of thing with Java would be a good idea. I'm told they started off by thinking of someone who had done a lot of work with Java and who was highly opinionated, and they immediately thought of me. Guilty on both counts.

The more genuine motivation is that I thought it would be an interesting forcing function to think about what it was that I liked about Java, and a vehicle to explain to others what I think the most valuable aspects of the language are. I'd always thought of Java (and continue to think of Java) as an interesting mix of dynamic, object-oriented language and environment that is particularly good at support large-scale, distributed systems. But the parts of Java that help in this have gotten lost in discussions about where Java is weak (and, as I've said before, there are certainly those places as well). So the book became a way for me to remind myself, and others, of why you should think of using Java in some sorts of projects.

[Vijitha Kumara]

Welcome Jim!

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Wow, we are in the presence of the world heavy weight champion.
Respect Mr. Waldo.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Welcome Jim!

[Padmnabh Vyas]

Welcome Jim waldo........
I'll Love to read the book...

[john price]

Welcome to the ranch! Some pointers and tips :
1. Watch out for the chickens. They bite.
2. Don't try to eat eat the Java tree. The farmer next door will come out with a big, loaded shotgun.
3. Enjoy yourself!

cc11rocks

[Yosi Pramajaya]

Hahahaha, this is funny things..

But I welcome you to Java Ranch...
Welcome James Waldo!

[Jim Waldo]

As the week is coming to an end, I just wanted to thank all of you for a terrific set of discussions. I can't remember a time that I felt more welcomed by a group, or a time when I found the discussion as interesting (and civilized). The ranch is a great place, and I hope to be able to stick around some time as a non-promotional member.

My thanks to you all...

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Jim,
We have a special thread to thank you for the week and show the winners.

[Bear Bibeault]

Addy Ag, please take the time to choose an appropriate forum to post your question in.
Your post was moved to a new topic.