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Free ebook?

 
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Hi. I'm hoping someone can recommend a good book for intermediate Java, hopefully covering things like generics without too much repetition of the basics.
But also something that's quite gentle and doesn't read like a Unix man page.
Thanks in advance.
 
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Bruce Eckel's ebook version of "Thinking in Java" is a free download: http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/
 
Java Cowboy
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As you can see, however, the free version of the book is from 2002, which is quite old. That means the book does not cover any recent version of Java, so you'll be missing information on a lot of features. I think this book covers Java 1.4, which means it doesn't even have information on generics and all the other features added in Java 5, 6, 7 and 8.
 
Al Finlay
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Hmm .. thanks for the replies so far. Some good advice, the 3rd edition does not mention generics.
The 4th edition does mention generics but 2006 is a little dated.
Any other ideas?
 
Al Finlay
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What about "The Java® Language Specification Java SE 8 Edition"? Authors - James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy Steele, Gilad Bracha, Alex Buckley.
Its free & up to date. I'll have a looksee and hopefully it will be ok.

If anyone has any other suggestions that would be great.
Thanks in advance. I appreciate the help.
 
Jesper de Jong
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The Java Language Specification is the official specification of the Java language. It's main goal is to specify the rules of the Java programming language as precisely and unambiguously as possible. It's very useful as a reference, if you need to know exactly how some specific feature works, but it is not a tutorial to learn Java - don't expect in-depth explanations and extensive examples for each of the language features. Besides the JLS there is the Java Virtual Machine Specification (which you can find on the same page) which is the official specification of how a JVM should work.

Oracle's Java Tutorials are a good place to learn Java - there are lots of tutorials about lots of different subjects, from absolute beginner's level up to much more advanced topics. Have a look, for example, at the generics tutorial (since that was one of the topics you asked about).

The most extensive resource about generics is Angelika Langer's Java Generics FAQ, it explains everything you ever want to know about generics.
 
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Oracle's Java tutorials are indeed a good source of information.
 
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Here is a list of 10 free Java eBooks, you can choose what you like but my favorite one is Java application development on Linux.
 
Marshal
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Some of those books are over ten years old. The last one is one I have read (Think like a computer scientist) and I gave up after about 20 pages because I was finding so many errors in it.
 
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