Java(tm)2: A Beginner's Guide

by Herbert Schildt

Book Overview

This work provides up-to-date coverage of the latest API specification. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0072225882
• ISBN13: 9780072225884
• Release Date: November 2002
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media
• Length: 544 Pages
• Weight: 1.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A Great Book for Novice & Experienced Programmers Alike

When I needed to learn the Java programming language very quickly for work, I read many reviews and narrowed down my search to handful of few books. I looked at copies of my final possible choices in a local bookstore and finally purchased Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" and have absolutely no regrets.Herbert Schildt's book was written for people to learn the fundamentals of programming in Java as easily and as quickly as possible. (Of course, each reader can go at his/her own pace.) After I began reading the book, I started to become accustomed to Java's terminology and downloaded Sun's free Java compiler online. Within a few days, I was writing my own simple stand-alone Window's applications and applets. After that, I started exploring more complex concepts.Herbert Schildt's writing style and book organization made it possible for me to start writing a complex, multithreaded, work-related application within 4 weeks. He begins the book with a history of the Java language; it's relations to C, C++ and C#; it's built-in security & portability; bytecode; and object-oriented programming. He then explores data types, operators, and program control statements before explaining the heart of a Java program: classes, objects and methods. From there, the reader is ready to be introduced to some of Java's more powerful aspects: inheritance, polymorphism, abstract classes, packages and interfaces.Next, what elevates Java over many other languages is its built in exception handling. Being able to track and locate programming errors is often one of the most difficult aspects of programming, especially when the program is large and complex. Java allows programmers to test various blocks of a program using the statements "try" and "catch". Some methods require the use of the "try" and "catch" block because of their potential to generate an exception that is outside of the program's control (such as file streams).The next very powerful aspect of Java that Herbert Schildt explores is multithreading. Seasoned real-time programmers will be very familiar with the concept of multitasking, but for many novice programmers, the concept of multitasking or multithreading (as it is called in Java) can be daunting and confusing. Herbert Schildt's explanations of how to use multithreading (and its potential problems) are thorough and relevant. Finally, Herbert Schildt explores the creation of applets.As your knowledge of Java expands, you'll find it very worthwhile to purchase a more comprehensive Java reference book that contains a broad list of the various classes and methods available within the language. For this, I highly recommend Herbert Schildt's "Java 2: The Complete Reference, Fifth Edition", which is geared for J2SE 1.4.Overall, I rate "Java 2: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition" by Herbert Schildt with 5 out of 5 stars. Java is a great programming language, and Herbert Schildt's instructions make learning the lan

I Get this har Java Thang! :)

Let me respectfully begin by saying that I am not a programmer, and this book is not targeted towards professional programmers. My background is in business and education, and I have to take a meaty course in Java as a part of a post-graduate program I am going to start in the fall. I am in the process of finishing chapter ten of this book, and it is a painless and thorough introduction to Java and OOP concepts. I started my self-study on Java using Ivor Horton's Introductory Java book. Unquestionably, this is a fantastic starting point for professional programmers starting in Java, but I found the explanations and the examples in the book to be extremely confusing and disheartening. "Java 2 A Beginner's Guide," covers most of the content of the first half of Horton's book. However, the examples are clear and crisp, and Schildt is a master teacher because every chapter starts with purposefully simple concepts and problems and then more complex work is introduced. However, the author writes in such a manner, that I can thoroughly understand everything. Please let me reiterate that I am NOT a programmer, but taking a course in structured programming at university has helped me learn Java. I have now re-read the first seven Chapters of Horton's book, and I totally understand what is gong on. This fact alone makes this book an excellent purchase. I must confess that learning Java is not an easy process for me. Schildt's book is not designed to turn people who have few computer skills into programming wizards. There is a lot to learn in Java, but this book really helps to get people, with just a touch of programming experience up to speed, so that they can tackle some of the harder books. I am totally bemused as to why this book is ignored by readers when so many lesser books get praised?

Still THE best book for beginning Java programmers!

(Just to let you know I do not personally know and am not affiliated with the author or the publisher of this book.)I posted a review here before. After working through part of this book, I have these additional comments:The book can be useful to both unexperienced and experienced programmers alike. For unexperienced programmers, it might be helpful to read an introductory book on programming before reading this book (as of this writing, both "Sams" and the "For Dummies" series have beginner programmer books that are good). Experienced programmers migrating to Java will also find this book a good way to study the fundamentals of Java.To run the programs that you make from the book, you either have to have something called the Java2 SDK or an IDE. The SDK is a tool that allows you to run your programs on your computer and can be downloaded for free from the Sun Microsystem website. An IDE is a tool that also lets you run programs, but you have to buy it from a store. If you download the SDK, you might have to set something on your computer called the 'CLASSPATH'. I think the SDK documentation explains this.This book will teach the fundamentals of Java. The Java language is a very big language - there are lots of other things you can also learn about Java. However, before you can walk, you have to crawl. This book will teach to how to crawl.A final thing I did not mention in my previous post was that each chapter ends with a "Mastery Check" mini-test with different kinds of questions. What is cool is that they also have questions that ask you to write mini-programs, and the sample answers are in the back of the book.

THE book for beginning programmers to learn Java!

(Just to let you know, I do not personally know and am not affiliated with the author of this book or the publisher.)I just bought this book, and I cannot agree more with the previous poster (a reader from Arizona). At first, I was skeptical, thinking that it it would be just another "teach yourself book". But, after a cursory view, as of this writing, this is probabaly THE best book for people with little or no programming experience to use to learn the basics of Java on their own.This book looks like a masterpiece as far as teaching a beginner how to program in Java. The author Herbert Schildt seems to really have spent a lot of time figuring out how to present what could be difficult material to learn and simplify it for beginners. He seems to have limited the amount of difficult "computer jargon" in the book and instead explains everything using plain English. This isn't a book that you just read; it contains a lot of clearly explained step-by-step exercises and projects as the book goes along to allow the reader to practice what he/she is reading. The book is extremely well-organized and thought out.I can't believe I'm writing this, but I think he has actually produced a book that will make it fun for a beginner to learn Java! The font type is of the friendly sort, and he smartly uses bold typeface to emphasize important terms. He also includes little dialogue boxes within the coding presentations to explain material. The book also contains quick drill questions (with answers at the bottom of the page) to reinforce blocks of material and "Ask the Expert" boxes where a reader can delve deeper into a topic. And he also explains everything efficiently and consicely. I even like the cover of this book; I think it has nice and non-intimidating colors.The book isn't really a reference, rather it is a study tool. I suppose one could use it as a reference. (However, I bought his The Complete Java2 Reference 4th Edition, and I'll probably return it for now and buy it later if I do a lot of Java programming. As a study tool, this book seems better).I might write another review after I finish working through this book.

Java 2 for absolute beginners - a great introduction

Like all of his books, Herb Schlidt is a master in defining programming concepts in a very simple, yet very concise and easy to read style.I think this book on Java 2 will be a classic. It is extremely well structured into 12 modules which take will probably take most people 2-4 hours, or about 12 continuous days of reading to finish. No CD to keep the price low and the ability to download code examples online, mean you need an interet connected computer to effectively use this book.This book will probably bring Java2 to a whole new generation of beginning Java programmers. If you haven't learned the language and want a gentle introduction, you could do a lot worse!