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Murach's Java Programming

 
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Author/s    : Joel Murach
Publisher   : Mike Murach & Associates
Category   : Advanced Java
Review by : Campbell Ritchie
Rating        : 8 horseshoes

Whenever reviewing a book, consider which audience and purpose it's intended for. This book is obviously for experienced people (Murach produce a "Beginning" book, too) who wish to migrate to Java™ programming from another language, and so as to speed up coding teaches both Java™ and NetBeans. It fortunately makes no claim to be comprehensive; it clearly focuses on certain classes (see page 366), expecting readers to find other topics for themselves.
The book follows the paired pages format often used by Murach, wherever the length of the code fragments permits. It starts with basic syntax, then object-orientation, specialised classes, GUIs, data access, threading and deployment with jar files. Collections and exceptions are included amongst those "specialised classes". I was especially pleased to see that data validation, using error messages was introduced early in the book, and that the exceptions section teaches how to throw Exceptions for incorrect input, as well as how to catch them.
The GUIs are created with the NetBeans GUI builder; this allows one to set up the display very quickly without necessarily knowing all the code. It also shows real object-oriented event handling.
This book moves very fast and would be particularly on to a course, where an instructor can supply more explanations. I would have preferred to see "for further reading" and references to basic principles e.g. Object-orientation.
I found a few errors, eg precedence of ! (p117) Character and Hashtable misspelt (p401, 396).
A good book I'm pleased I've read.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

More info at Amazon.com
 
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Review by : Christophe Verre
Rating        : 7 horseshoes

Murach's Java programming is a classic Murach book aimed at Java enthusiasts. Following Murach's paired-paged style, with the left page for explanations and the right page for syntax, guidelines and examples, the book drives the reader into the Java world. It even goes a bit beyond the language syntax, by providing chapters on JDBC using the Derby database, and a chapter about XML handling. Each chapter ends with practical hands-on exercises. The IDE used throughout the book is Netbeans. The book is fast paced, maybe because explanations are kept to a minimum, so whether or not beginners are the target audience is debatable. Object-oriented programming needs time to assimilate so some people might find chapters on that subject lacking depth. The book is enjoyable, but I'd recommend it to people with an object-oriented background rather that to complete beginners.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.

More info at Amazon.com
 
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