Murach's Beginning Java 2 by Andrea Steelman (Murach And Associates, Inc)

[Johannes de Jong]

This is a book for those who think learning to swim is best accomplished by being thrown into the deep end of the pool. Instead of beginning with several chapters dedicated to syntax and theory, you start coding right away. Chapter 2 deals with some basic coding skills and by its end introduces you to importing classes and Swing!?! Chapter 3 introduces static methods, exceptions, the Java Archive tool, and encourages you to browse the API documentation. Writing object-oriented programs begins with Chapters 4 and 5. In-depth discussion of Java syntax is sprinkled around in each chapter, and given more attention after Chapter 6, which introduces designing and testing object-oriented programs. Sound crazy? It might be crazy enough to work.
The material is presented in easy to understand language, and I understood most of the explanations the first time I read them. However, I really think that if I had no previous experience with Java at all, I would have freaked out at the end of Chapter 3 when asked to modify a sample program so that it �uses a nested while loop and a try/catch statement to catch the exception that may be thrown by the parseDouble method�. Not for the faint of heart.
I like this book, and I think it can deliver as promised. A person who wants to learn Java quickly would get a lot out of this book. Their code might not be pretty, but it would probably run.
(Carol Murphy - RanchHand September 2001)
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[jonas okwara]

Your review of Andrea's book on java is true to the point. I am a novice in java programming but after going through that book, I was encourged to go for the scjp exam last december. Even though I still read the certification book by kate and bates, there is no doubt that I was really encourged to become a java professional after reading Andrea's book.


jonas

[Bob Rubin]

well, i'm using Murach now (on the second GUI chapter) --- most books get so bogged down that you lose interest before you get to anything interesting -- this time i'll stick it ou until certification!!

[Rob Freiberger]

Currently I�m taking a Java programming class here at my local community college and we are using this book. While I have brief programming experience with VB scripting, and some Visual Basic I found this book to be difficult to read. It was also hard to understand the some of the concepts; maybe better examples could be used next time? I think as the book�s description says, it�s written for people with programming experience, not for people with little knowledge.

As a side note, I have learned much more from my Head Start Java book than the Murach book. The visual diagrams greatly help me understand the topics.

Rob