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Author/s : Joshua Bloch, Neal Gafter
Publisher : Addison-Wesley Professional
Category : Advanced Java
Review by : John Wetherbie
Rating : 9 horseshoes</pre>
This is a fun book that's educational, too! The purpose is to help the reader learn about traps you can fall into coding in
Java through the use of code puzzles. There are 95 puzzlers with each puzzle and associated solution discussion running two to three pages each. Appendix A provides a quick summary of the various traps identified in the book and the puzzlers in which they appeared. Appendix B describes the optical illusions scattered throughout the book.
In general each puzzler has a very short description of what the program appears to do and the program itself. It is your job to figure out what the program actually does and more importantly why. The following page is a discussion of why the program actually does what it does. Important points and traps to avoid are bolded in the discussion. Note that some of the puzzlers depend on you having Java 1.5.
Bloch and Gafter want you to think about and be aware of the language features and APIs you are using along with having fun. Read the description and the code, determine what the code does, run the code, and then, in most cases, rethink your analysis. Then read the solution and think about what the authors are saying. Go read the sections of the Java Language Specification or other references mentioned in the solution.
Truly an enjoyable book!
Full Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review.
More info at Amazon.com More info at Amazon.co.uk