Thinking in Java is a printed version of Bruce Eckel’s online materials that provides a useful perspective on mastering Java for those with previous programming experience. The author’s take on the essence of Java as a new programming language and the thorough introduction to Java’s features make this a worthwhile tutorial.
Thinking in Java begins a little esoterically, with the author’s reflections on why Java is new and better. (This book’s choice of font for chapter headings is remarkably hard on the eyes.) The author outlines his thoughts on why Java will make you a better programmer, without all the complexity. The book is better when he presents actual language features. There’s a tutorial to basic Java types, keywords, and operators. The guide includes extensive source code that is sometimes daunting (as with the author’s sample code for all the Java operators in one listing.) As such, this text will be most useful for the experienced developer.
The text then moves on to class design issues, when to use inheritance and composition, and related topics of information hiding and polymorphism. (The treatment of inner classes and scoping will likely seem a bit overdone for most readers.) The chapter on Java collection classes for both Java Developer’s Kit (JDK) 1.1 and the new classes, such as sets, lists, and maps, are much better. There’s material in this chapter that you are unlikely to find anywhere else.
Chapters on exception handling and programming with type information are also worthwhile, as are the chapters on the new Swing interface classes and network programming. Although it adopts somewhat of a mixed-bag approach, Thinking in Java contains some excellent material for the object-oriented developer who wants to see what all the fuss is about with Java.
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars A Bit Disappointed
Much of the code in the book is predicated on you using some of his custom libraries. As a result, you learn things his way, not necessarily the standard way to code Java.
4 Stars The Java Bible with Design Patterns
I really liked this book, its a complete one. I used it to study for the SCJP 5.0 Exam as a complement to the Kathys book. Its however not a beginners book. You have to have some programming background cause its very theorical book. It explains in depth every subject, and its it drawback too, it gets a little boring with so much explanation, and in some examples it focuses more on the Design Patterns than Java. This is the Java Bible,every thing you will need is inside.
5 Stars Comprehesive Java Tutorial
Thinking in Java is a quite comprehensive book for intermediate to advanced level for Java programmers. Each chapter can be read individually in order to learn inner details of Java 5/6 language. This is not a book for a new comer to Java language.
5 Stars Become a Java guru
I have been a Java developer for 7 years, and my knowledge of Java increased by double, if not more, after reading this book. This book is fantastic to get deep into general Java topics. No kidding, I learned enough that I was able to point out features in Java that even our “gurus” at work did not know. Now I am one of the gurus! Note that the book covers no J2EE and is only an intro to concurrency so suppliment with books specific to those topics if you need.
5 Stars Thinking in Java, 4th edition
This is a beginner addressed book on Java: if you are already skilled in programming with procedural or even OO language, you’ll find this book very useful.
The text is very simple and clear, the examples are incisive and at the end of each chapter you’ll find a couple of exercises that can be very useful to focus the concepts.
A “thinking in enterprise java” would be a great successor to this good book.
5 stars!
