Java: How to Program by Deitel and Deitel

[Book Review Team]

<pre>

Author/s : Deitel and Deitel
Publisher : Prentice Hall
Category : Beginning Java
Review by : Thomas Paul
Rating : 7 horseshoes
</pre>
<review>
Deitel & Deitel books are impressive. They are impressive in size and scope (not
to mention weight). How can one describe a book that starts with "What is a
computer?" and ends with a discussion of the Java Media Framework? The book is
as complete as you would want in an introduction to Java. It is more than 1500
pages plus bonus chapters on the included CD. The book covers virtually
everything in J2SE, gives a good primer on object oriented programming, and
covers design patterns and UML. There's enough information in this book for two
semesters of Java. Perhaps this is the problem with this book. All this scope,
all this information is just too overwhelming. Trying to use this book to
self-teach Java would probably be too much. This is the kind of book that needs
a steady guiding hand to point out the important information. The book even
starts out hard, throwing the reader right into Swing which is used throughout
the book. But this book is good. Code examples are everywhere and they are very
well explained. The publisher even uses multi-color syntax highlighting to make
it easier to read the code. Virtually every line of code is explained. It is
almost impossible to turn a page and not find either code samples or a diagram.
If you are planning on teaching a Java course and you are looking for a textbook
this is one book that would make a good choice.
</review>


More info at Amazon.com
More info at Amazon.co.uk

[Kevin Gilchrist]

I spun up on Java this time last year on a Carnegie Technology (non-profit spin-off of Carnegie-Mellon that re-uses their course materials) class that used this book as their required text.
I found it to very thorough with great examples and accompanying source. I would definitely agree with the book reviewer in saying that there is a huge amount of material but that's a good thing! I still use it as a reference.

[Emmanuel Comba]

Oh yes, that's a good book.
I had no programming skills at all and I could prepare and pass ( 3 weeks ago ) the java 1.4 platform certification with this book.
Definitely, that's THE book for those who want to go step by step through the "java world".
Manu

[James Chegwidden]

The 5th edition of this book will be out in December.

[Ashik Uzzaman]

I consider this book as a good starter for Java along with Ivor Horton's Beginning Java 2. It's a good news that the 5th edition is coming soon!

[David O'Meara]

The book even starts out hard, throwing the reader right into Swing which is used throughout the book.

This would be my complaint too. I flipped through the book my brother was learning from and it was full of Swing stuff.
When someone is learning basic flow control if/else etc, how do you explain to them the difference between window creation as objects and messages popped up via static methods?
It doesn't appear to have done him any harm, but I still prefer the old 'System.out' exercise over event driven programming for beginners!

[Christian Ebage]

This book taught me java.
Ebage
SCJP
SCEA