• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Tim Cooke
  • paul wheaton
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
Sheriffs:
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Tim Holloway
  • Roland Mueller
Bartenders:

Core Java, Volume II--Advanced Features (9th Edition) (Core Series)

 
Bartender
Posts: 962
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Author/s    : Cay S. Horstmann, Gary Cornell
Publisher   : Prentice Hall
Category   : Advanced Java
Review by : Mohamed Sanaulla
Rating        : 9 horseshoes

I always liked the approach Cay S. Horstmann takes in the examples in his Core Java books. He tries to follow good practices in all his examples which includes better naming convention, documentation and comments, identifying right classes. This book, Core Java Volume-2, is no different. You find examples which are in themselves mini applications. You dont find toy programs which illustrate the feature and do some printing on the console. The examples themselves include different concepts across Java.

There are very interesting topics covered in this book like: Steams and Files, XML processing, JDBC, Network Programming, Scripting and Annotations, Security, JNI, Advanced Swing and AWT. I see that few chapters which were originally in Volume-2 have been moved to volume-1 namely multithreading and collections. I see a very exhaustive coverage on Swing and AWT, what I feel missing is the coverage of JavaFX features for which I think a chapter would suffice. Not to forget this book covers the Java 7 features as well.

Otherwise this book covers lot of stuff and I would recommend to use it as a reference to pick chapters as and when you want to explore those features. Reading end-to-end may not be necessary because most likely we would not be using all of those features in one place together. Reading end-to-end might be an overkill as well owing to the number of pages.

Bottom line: Highly recommend book in your bookshelf of Java references.

---
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
 
Bartender
Posts: 2407
36
Scala Python Oracle Postgres Database Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Interesting interview with Horstmann at InfoQ:

http://www.infoq.com/articles/java_cay_horstmann
 
Book Review Team
Bartender
Posts: 962
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Review by : Campbell Ritchie
Rating        : 9 horseshoes

I would always advise readers to try before they buy; look at the contents and sample pages on Amazon or similar. There you will find you get 1117 pages, 115 more than in my 2005 edition. That's even more of a change when you remember the threading chapter moved to Vol I. That extra space is full of information, in the inimitable Horstmann & Cornell (H&C) style. They teach object‑oriented programming throughout, with good coding style and emphasise correctness. The book has been updated and uses Java7 constructs throughout, even though the odd use of StringTokenizer escaped updating. And GridBagConstraints appears once instead of GBC (see volume I).
This book makes no pretence to comprehensiveness. There is relatively little about servlets, for example, and no design patterns; as I said about Vol I, they assume readers know patterns already.
The points for C++ programmers still appear; they are interesting but only of relevance to people coming from C++. Those points are probably important because there are many points where the apparent similarities between the two languages obscure differences.
I found the chapters about security and native methods particularly interesting.
The index is comprehensive. There are suggestions for further reading, e.g. about advanced graphics. When H&C are unhappy about something in the Java™ platform, they say so without hesitation (policytool is criticised on page 833).
The only weakness I perceive is the lack of a proper bibliography, which I believe would enhance this book greatly. There is one place where it looks as if a reference had been forgotten.
Still, H&C has been a favourite of mine for a long time, and remains a favourite.

---
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
 
Marshal
Posts: 80226
424
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I think I would have given the book 10HS if it had a proper bibliography.
As for the forgotten reference, somewhere (I forget where ‍) it said something on the lines of, “In a paper presented at the XYZ Java Conference they said …”. or similar. A link to the proceedings would have made it easy for readers to find the paper in question and verify the statement.
 
I don't get it. A whale wearing overalls? How does that even work? It's like a tiny ad wearing overalls.
Smokeless wood heat with a rocket mass heater
https://woodheat.net
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic