5 comments about Graphic Java 1.1: Mastering the AWT.

1. There are very many sorry Java books on the market these days. Therefore, I was very glad to discover "Graphic Java", 2nd edition. I found it to be a thorough guide to the AWT. In addition, it is accurate throughout, whereas many books fail to properly explain and use the new event model or other features of JDK 1.1.

   The book covers every aspect of the AWT, including events, containers vs components, layout managers, lightweight components, etc. Each discussion is peppered with effective examples that clarify the topic at hand. And, along the way, the authors point out good coding tips, such as the effective use of inner classes for event handling, proper object-oriented design, etc.

   As if that all wasn't enough, the second half of the book presents a very useful library of custom components that extend the AWT. The source code for this library is on the CD, and the book explains much of the source in detail. This section is also very valuable in learning to understand the AWT.

   In a world full of mediocre, inaccurate Java books, this one is a JOY to read




2. I concur with the review listed above, but must add that anyone out there trying to use Layout managers must read the 100 pages dedicated to that topic in this book...absolutely the best coverage of GridBagLayout that I have ever seen, including a very demonstrative applet that goes a long way towards helping a person learn how to use this very complex layout manager. The only reason I couldn't rate this book a 10 is that I found several coding errors when examining and running the many, comprehensive examples contained on the CD that accompanies this book. Definitely a must read.



3. It helped quite a bit, but the book will get deep quick with not a lot of explanation of how it got there. Yes I have it, read it and like it.



4. Graphic Java 1.1: Mastering the AWT is the best book that I've come accross, so far, for AWT programming. The book is a little advanced, new Java programmers may find this to be a little difficult. However, at the same time, the book also clearly teaches the new 1.1 event handling model. This is an excellent book for anyone who needs to do Windows programming with Java.



5. Having read the reviews, I expected a lot of deep information. I was mistaken. It is not a bad book, but if it stands out, it is mostly because the majority of Java authors figure that publishing a poorly documented API is adequate. I'd call this an intermediate level book.

   It lacks a permuted index, which is a must for a book like this. A lot of the nitty-gritty information is presented as an aside to demonstrating the examples instead of a well thoughout discussion. Some of these are in the index and some are not.

   If you're looking for thorough discussions of the AWT architecture, keep looking. If you're looking for a good discussion of how to use layouts, this might be the book for you.

5 comments about Java Programming with Oracle JDBC.

1. Looks like most of the material came from oracle documentation. Examples are very basic



2. This book gives good coverage of Oracle's JDBC implementation. That is about as far as it goes. This is just too close to being documentation. When purchasing books on a specific technology, I am looking for the author's insight. Specific things the author learned while working with it. Give me best practices, suggestions, things to avoid, etc. Tell me what I won't learn from Oracle's docs, don't just rewrite them.



3. This book is for Java developers who need to get the most out of using JDBC and Oracle (version 8.1.6). Choosing a specific database allows a lot more detail. Other JDBC books may skip database-dependent parts of the API; this book even gives code examples for the hard stuff. It is slow to read end-to-end, but "dipping" works well - there's almost always a helpful code example nearby.

   There are problems, though. The author is obviously very familiar with Oracle, but lacks the experience to make comparisons with other products, this book won't help you choose when to use Oracle or whan another system might be more appropriate. Also I noticed other signs of lack of research - he sometimes gets abbreviations wrong, and the Java code is not particularly well-written.

   The big problem for me is that the book assumes you only ever use Oracle. There is no consideration of code portability, it offers no wisdom about avoiding or encapsulating proprietary Oracle-specific extensions. The techniques in this book could easily lock your product into Oracle, worse, they might even lock your product into a specific version of Oracle.

   The book has minor discussion of extra features in Oracle8i and Oracle9i, but nothing about JDBC 3. It's less helpful if you are using a version older than 8.1.6, too.

   If you (or your management) have already sold your soul to Oracle, get this book. If you might need to use other databases, get a more generic book, but keep this one for those times when only a specific Oracle feature will do the trick.




4. Let me start by saying that had I purchased this book 2 years ago when it was first released, I would have given it 5 stars.

   This is a very well-written book, with good explanations and sample code. However, the book is fairly out of date, and much of the performance tuning suggestions he makes don't really apply as much when using the latest Oracle JDBC drivers and Oracle9 database. This book covers Oracle 8.1.6, and a lot of changes have been made between that release and 8.1.7 and Oracle9.

   I recommend the newer "Oracle 9i JDBC Programming" book by Jason Price for much more current coverage of this topic.




5. A no-nonsense, well-written and well-organized introduction to the Java programming language with Oracle JDBC. It uses a careful, example-based, easy to understand approach. A friendly and well-written book recommended for anyone ready to learn the power of Java programming language with Oracle JDBC.
   Thank you

3 comments about Foundations of Algorithms Using Java Pseudocode.

1. The authors take a more informal approach to describing algorithms, than other texts, by Knuth, Sedgewick and Aho. This may appeal to some of you, who might have been put off by the level of mathematical background required by the other books. Or by the rate of exposition of ideas within those books.
   
   The presence of problems with each chapter helps your learning. And there certainly seems to be plenty of examples. To me, it seemed like they were belabouring the point, in places. But to you, it might feel like a comfortable dialog.
   
   The usage of Java pseudocode is neither here nor there. If you are sufficiently skilled in a programming language, and it need not be Java, then you should have no problem writing out actual code to test the algorithms. In other words, don't worry if you do not know Java. Just imagine it as generic pseudocode.



2. I found the material and explanations in this book to be generally followable. I would definitely recommend it for learning the various concepts.
   
   The problem is, as a reference for how to implement certain algorithms, it falls completely flat. Simply because they wrote all their algorithms with the idea that arrays start at '1'. This is icomprehensible inasmuch as no programming language has arrays starting at 1, no budding programmer would think of an array as starting at 1, the authors would have had to test all these algorithms in languages with arrays starting at 0 and then spent way too long converting them since a good many of the algorithms in the book are completely broken when rewritten under the assumption that arrays start at 0 (the 'norm').
   
   In summary, it seems like they went out their way to create extra work for both themselves and their readers. This one little thing is honestly a huge pain.



3. The book was purchased as a classroom text. The subject matter is incredibly difficult, but the authors do their best to make it comprehensible.

5 comments about Professional IBM WebSphere 5.0 Application Server (Programmer to Programmer).

1. This book has been a huge disappointment. Wrox books had the
   habit of being no BS, clear, hands-on, detailed techical tutorials.. and this is why they had their original success. But now, perhaps in conjunction with being bought by Wiley, Wrox is definitely going down. The authors of this book souns like IBM managers, not certainly programmers. The first chapters do not contain ANY techical info but just advertising for IBM products (I am not making this up..!)
   The rest of the presentation is a confused, disorderly, bloated,
   verbose, unnecessarily complicated sequence of "click here and then click there" instructions. If you have some brains this book will be unbearable, if you have none, well you're probably one of the authors.
   What is most irritating and annoying about this book is the pompous, monotonous, slow tone aimed at passing straightforward
   technical notions for rocket science, which unfortunately seems to be a general trend at IBM.



2. This may be a little premature as I'm only 100 pages in but, it's extremely refreshing to see a very thorough treatment of a J2EE focused product - that is rare to me. J2EE is not rocket science but, it is also not trivial as evidenced by the lack of good readable documention on the subject - despite J2EE ubiquity.

   The authors are obviously extremely knowledgable about their product (WS and WSAD) and they patiently communicate it in an articulate manner that make learning this stuff as easy as it could be.

   If you want something more concise and thoroughly difficult to learn from, go read the Sun J2EE specs, their fun... and their free and they mostly apply to WS.

   I've never liked a book written by 6 people. Usually the compliation reminds me more of a pile of ... e.g. just a hack. This book appears to be the exception. You really gain an appreciation and an understanding of the elegance of the functionality of the WS and WSAD products.

   I was a JDeveloper/9iAS bigot until this book and some experience with the WSAD/WS products.

   The only 2 problems I see with WAS 5.1 (that's the version I'm currently working with) is that it's a step behind the competition (i.e. J2EE 1.3 versus 1.4) and that some of the WSAD wizards are mediocre but, that's not the books problem.

   Thanks for the good job. Keep up the good work.




3. It is very hard to follow the example that is covered in various chapters.
   The optimization and tuning the server is hardly there.



4. I paid OVER $80 for this book (dumb me, I know...) hoping I could get a version of WebSphere that might work with some sample applications but I was apparently asking too much. I go through the entire 30 minute installation process from both CDs
   and then when I start WSAD 5.0 I get the helpful error message
   telling me that 'The license cannot be found. IBM Websphere Studio application developer version 5.0.0 cannot start'. Well,
   THANKS A LOT IBM - taking a lesson from the Microsoft playbook?

   And OF COURSE there is no reference to this problem in the book or on the WROX website though there at least 20 license.* files installed with WSAD, none of which have anything to do with an actual license that can be read by WSAD when it starts. I'm taking the book back and hope I can get refund so I don't have to spend a day trying to figure this mess out. Thank God for WebLogic....




5. I found this book great. The examples were concise. The font was wonderful. Who knew J2EE could be so much fun?!?! (And those handsome dudes on the front sure don't hurt either.) 3 thumbs up

5 comments about J2EE 1.4: The Big Picture.

1. Sun does a lot of things right with their Java products, but one thing they do wrong is in how they name their versions of Java. J2EE 1.4 is an environment that allows you to do very many things. Short for Java 1.(2) Enterprise Edition, it is a set of tools used to write large, distributed applications, although from the name, it is hard to discern that fact. Since distributed applications have many parts, simply understanding how those parts can be put together is a major undertaking. This book is designed to give the reader a broad overview of J2EE, the various components and what each is used for.
   There is very little code in the book. What does appear is skeletal and easy to understand. The premise is that Antoine is starting an online gourmet pizza business after being successful in selling locally. His online component is wildly successful and before long he realizes that he must scale his online business dramatically upward. The current structure of his website does not allow for rapid and efficient expansion, so his online business is in danger of collapsing under the weight of his success.
   The book is designed to be an overview of the different ways the components of J2EE can be used to create an application server. It is not in any way meant to be an in-depth technical manual, the goal is to explain the components of J2EE in a way that non-technical people can understand. That goal is successfully met, there is never a time where the authors rise to a technical level beyond that of someone who understands how software operates.
   If your goal is to learn the overall use of J2EE in creating large distributed systems, then this is the book for you. However, if you possess some technical knowledge, then it will probably not be interesting or challenging.



2. Good non-techie intro. I'm now ready for a technical introduction to J2EE.
   
   It helps to have an introduction to enterprise architecture (i.e. Martin Fowler Enterprise Patterns) before moving on to this book.



3. The book is full of "cutesiness" which makes the book much longer than it need be.
   Conversely - what the book lacks is a good solid explanation, with detailed examples, of basic elements of J2EE like the Home_interface Component/Local/Remote interface - and how they actually tie-in with the Clients and RDBMS. It's not that these things aren't mentioned. They are. For example chapter12, p.148 :
   "The Home interface is kind of like a hostess at a restaurant. In fancier restaurants you don't find your own table and order your food directly from the chef; you ask the hostess to find you a seat and the hostess assigns you a waiter who talks to the chef.You ask the waiter for your food".
   Followed by 8 pages containing some codes and and explanations - that don't really explain how you connect everything together.
   
   So in conclusion - if what you want is to know the buzz-words, the book is to long.
   If what you need is technical detail beyond a long explanation why J2EE is like a fancy restaurant,
   and that: "The database just sits around holding data. Sometimes it hums snatches from Broadway musicals softly to itself but mostly it doesn't do much. And that doesn't do anyone any good. like a library without a librarian" (p.159)
   - than this book is disappointing



4. This is quite possibly the worst book ever written. I've actually not finished reading it, and probably never will; I've tried three times, but end up putting it down after 20 pages every time I pick it up. I recently brought it on a plane trip with me so I had several hours with it, but it's just not possible to get very far. You truly have to suspend disbelief while reading this piece of garbage: "Are they really writing this? Doesn't Prentice Hall use editors? Or at least some sort of grammar check?"
   
   Every aspect of technology has been personified or anthropomorphized. The Dolphin is constantly talking to the Statue of Atlas who in turn talks to the Golden Retriever, but they only explain once that the Golden Retrieve equals the database server, so after five pages when you've forgotten that fact none of it makes any sense any more. You literally need Cliffs Notes to decode what the authors are talking about. All the "characters" talk to each other, with dialogue and everything. And the dialogue is AWFUL. If you can't write poetry or prose, then why bother writing a little play between the web serving Bee and the web containing Horse? Reading terrible writing is surprisingly distracting. Midway through trying to comprehend a concept the authors cut away to an example where the Scarecrow says something unbelievably stupid to the Cowardly Lion and all you can think is "how did this make it into the final draft?" Congratulations: you just wasted the last five minutes of your life, and you have nothing at all to show for it. (Aside: they actually use the characters from the Wizard of Oz to represent some concept, but the analogy is so flawed that they literally take several sentences explaining how the Tin Man represents Resource Management. You will never get those three minutes back, and you will be dumber for having read it. Shouldn't an example metaphor whose purpose is to illustrate a point be somewhat obvious?)
   
   This book is 90% filler and 100% poorly written. I just cannot figure out who the target audience is. It is not for anyone remotely technical. Anyone who is functional and has risen to a managerial role is probably too busy to deal with the ridiculousness of the book. But if you do have the time to wade through this disaster and are simple enough to appreciate this mess, then how could you possibly need to know about J2EE? Who are you people that gave this book five stars?!? What companies pay your salaries?!?



5. I continue to recommend this book to people who are unfamiliar with the Java Enterprise platform. This book is well-written and easy to digest--the perfect introductory book!

No comments about An Introduction to Network Programming with Java + CD.

No comments about Sun Certifier Java programmer Video Training Course for Java 5 and 6.

No comments about Java SE 5/6 Deltas.

No comments about Java Programming - A Beginner's Course.

5 comments about WebSphere Application Server Bible.

1. I recently started a job that is using WAS for their application server. I needed a reference book to help jump start me, and I felt this book did a great job. It covers the install and admin pieces quite well, and I am beginning to go through the development sections. I like the fact that they have a lot of code examples and an overall running project example. I get alot of use from looking at actual working code. The book does use the WSAD(WebSphere Studio Application Developer) tool to illustrate the examples, but I just used my favorite editor and Javac with out any problems. Overall this book explained well the things I needed to know and I would recommend it to others.



2. Complete, detailed, easy to read and understand, this book should be shipped with every copy of Websphere Server. The best money I've spent on a technical book in years. If you are developing applications with Websphere, you should own a copy of this book. It clearly explains how to exploit J2EE technologies in your application architecture, as well as how to take advantage of the features of Websphere Server. Invaluable as a learning guide or as a reference.



3. This book is an excellent resource for WebSphere administrators and WebSphere developers. In fact, I have attended instructor-led courses by several major system providers and this book taught me more about J2EE programming than either provider. Examples and a complete application are available for download and they're in .jar .ear format which makes importing and running in WSAD much easier than generic texts. The target audience is somewhere between beginner and intermediate student. The language and detail level is effective for Java students. You won't need a dictionary of OO terms to follow the author's explanation and purpose of components.



4. I am glad others found the book useful. I found it nearly worhtless although I was pleased with the WSAD 4 coverage. However, explanations are minimal and trying to deploy your first app to WebSphere 4 using this book was a waste. After reading and re-reading everything it said, we still had no success so we just dug in, trial and error, several days and finally got it. Discussions on virtual hosts offered us nothing but a few descriptions that only make sense after you understand what a virtual host is. With paragraph after paragraph labeled understanding, I would have thought some would have been imparted - we needed quick understanding in a real project and the way things are today, we needed it fast. The book gets rarely referenced by myself. There is just not enough in depth explanation to save one from the school of "hard knocks". A student, with time may get some value as an introduction but overall I was disappointed.



5. I bought this book because it was marketed as a guide for the beginners and intermediates. Lie.

   I needed to learn websphere for my job, so after the first few chapters I had to stop because the thing started to fly way over my head. All I needed was something to explain me the basics and the most common architecture and mechanics.

   This book doesn't do that. Maybe if you are a veteran with Websphere, this might be good, but if you are looking for something to get you started, stay away from this book.