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Java Developers Almanac 1.4 Vol. 1
What's the Book About?
The Almanac is divided into four main parts: packages, which covers every package in the core Java distribution, with the exceptions of the AWT, Swing, and printing; classes, which lists every class in alphabetical order, including all of its methods and fields; topics, which details the changes between each version of Java; and cross-reference, which allows you to look up every class, interface, and member type in Java 1.4.
Section 1, the package list, gives you every package in Java 1.4, every class inside those packages, the top-level description of the classes (from Sun's JavaDoc), a note of what JDK version the class was born in, an abstract/final indicator, and a hierarchy of the classes in the package. If this were all, it might be a nice, basic Java reference.
In addition to the strict listing, however, are hundreds of examples of how to use the classes; some basic, some obvious, and some you probably haven't seen.
The examples are extremely handy, if only to point out various utilities included with Java that you might otherwise not know about. With over 500 examples in the book, there's probably one you haven't seen or want to understand better.
There's also a website with all the code available at javaalmanac.com, so you don't have to type in every example you want to use in your code.
Section 2 provides a listing of every class in the covered packages in alphabetical order, along with all the signature of every public method in those classes. The book also cross-references every example in part 1 for each method. So, if you want to know how to better use ResultSet.afterLast(), you only need find the ResultSet class, and next to the afterLast() method are the two examples that use that method. With this easy organization, it's very straightforward to find any example you're looking for.
Part 3 goes through every major JDK release, starting at 1.0, and tells you everything you could possibly want to know about that release. You can find a statistical analysis of each release, including how many packages, classes, and members there are, how many classes in each package, new and removed classes and methods, deprecations, and all defined exceptions. I've certainly never seen a better or more compact reference on the differences between the JDKs.
Finally, part 4 gives a complete cross-reference for every class, interface and member mentioned. If you want to find every class that throws a ParseException, this is the place to find it.
What's Bad?The one bad thing that strikes me about this book is actually just a simple question: Why should I use it when most of this information is at my fingertips in an IDE? Sun's JavaDoc is nicely thorough, and includes most everything in this book, the examples being a notable exception. Parts 3 and 4, of course, are not at all included in the JavaDoc, but I'm not sure how often I might need those sections.
So What's In It For Me?If you're a down-and-dirty professional Java programmer, this book may very well be useful to you. The examples are quite handy, and as a reference to Java, it covers most anything you might need. Much of the information in the last two sections is hard to find in one coherent compilation. At $25 MSRP, it's an excellent value for all the information packed into the book.
Table of Contents- Preface
- Part 1: Packages
- Part 2: Classes
- Part 3: Topics
- Part 4: Cross-reference
You can purchase Java Developers' Almanac 1.4 Vol. 1 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
To keep while programming. I was very pleased with the previous version.
Dear Bill, do you have a
This is what I'm looking for when picking up a book to pick up a new language. Give me the class library API and some examples. For more advanced topics like multi-threading, I'm going to want something with maybe a little more depth and background on the topic.
Whenever I'm developing Java or C#, I spend most of my research time just browing the base class libraries anyway, so I can't think of a better toilet-time companion.
Thanks for the review.
-- jimmycarter
Check it out here for $17.99 USD.
Real software engineers regret the existence of COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC.
...waiting to see Guide to Intimacy...
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Java Developers Almanac 1.4 Vol. 1
Posted by timothy on Wednesday November 27, @10:30AM
Jason Bennett writes "The Java Developer's Almanac is an interesting cross-breed of a book. On one hand, it's a reference book for the entire Java 1.4 API, complete with a listing for every method in every class in the API. On the other hand, it's a mini-tutorial, as it comes with myriad examples of how to use various Java classes. In the end, though, it's a book geared toward the advanced Java developer, especially one facing a new part of the API who needs a little guidance." Read on for his review. Java Developers Almanac 1.4 Vol. 1
author Patrick Chan
pages 1007
publisher Addison Wesley
rating 7/10
reviewer Jason Bennett
ISBN 0201752808
summary A concise reference to every class and method in Java 1.4, with examples for many.
What's the Book About?
The Almanac is divided into four main parts: packages, which covers every package in the core Java distribution, with the exceptions of the AWT, Swing, and printing; classes, which lists every class in alphabetical order, including all of its methods and fields; topics, which details the changes between each version of Java; and cross-reference, which allows you to look up every class, interface, and member type in Java 1.4.
Section 1, the package list, gives you every package in Java 1.4, every class inside those packages, the top-level description of the classes (from Sun's JavaDoc), a note of what JDK version the class was born in, an abstract/final indicator, and a hierarchy of the classes in the package. If this were all, it might be a nice, basic Java reference.
In addition to the strict listing, however, are hundreds of examples of how to use the classes; some basic, some obvious, and some you probably haven't seen.
The examples are extremely handy, if only to point out various utilities included with Java that you might otherwise not know about. With over 500 examples in the book, there's probably one you haven't seen or want to understand better.
There's also a website with all the code available at javaalmanac.com, so you don't have to type in every example you want to use in your code.
Section 2 provides a listing of every class in the covered packages in alphabetical order, along with all the signature of every public method in those classes. The book also cross-references every example in part 1 for each method. So, if you want to know how to better use ResultSet.afterLast(), you only need find the ResultSet class, and next to the afterLast() method are the two examples that use that method. With this easy organization, it's very straightforward to find any example you're looking for.
Part 3 goes through every major JDK release, starting at 1.0, and tells you everything you could possibly want to know about that release. You can find a statistical analysis of each release, including how many packages, classes, and members there are, how many classes in each package, new and removed classes and methods, deprecations, and all defined exceptions. I've certainly never seen a better or more compact reference on the differences between the JDKs.
Finally, part 4 gives a complete cross-reference for every class, interface and member mentioned. If you want to find every class that throws a ParseException, this is the place to find it.
What's Bad?
The one bad thing that strikes me about this book is actually just a simple question: Why should I use it when most of this information is at my fingertips in an IDE? Sun's JavaDoc is nicely thorough, and includes most everything in this book, the examples being a notable exception. Parts 3 and 4, of course, are not at all included in the JavaDoc, but I'm not sure how often I might need those sections.
So What's In It For Me?
If you're a down-and-dirty professional Java programmer, this book may very well be useful to you. The examples are quite handy, and as a reference to Java, it covers most anything you might need. Much of the information in the last two sections is hard to find in one coherent compilation. At $25 MSRP, it's an excellent value for all the information packed into the book.
Table of Contents
Preface
Part 1: Packages
Part 2: Classes
Part 3: Topics
Part 4: Cross-reference
You can purchase Java Developers' Almanac 1.4 Vol. 1 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
You obviously don't know a thing about Java. My recommendation is not to post when you have nothing to say. We have enough crap here at Slashdot forums.
Please don't take it as an offense.
1. Buy Java for Dummies book, write a cute web applet
2. Get $100,000 job coding Java for some corporate application.
3. Watch your self-esteem fall through the floor over the course of 3 years at that job, from realizing that the only language you know sucks ass, your products are all bug-ridden and bloated, and your source-code is grossly inefficient and unreadable.
4. Quit job, become crack addict bum on downtown street that other Java developers at an earlier stage than yourself stare at and don't give money to.
5. In a drunked cracked-out haze, have a moment of Zen enlightenment, and dawn upon the reality of computers, unix, and all the better languages out there.
6. Clean up, move in with parents, learn , get a real job, feel good about your code, live happily ever after.
11*43+456^2
2 : a usually annual publication containing statistical, tabular, and general information
Just in case anybody else out there, like me, was totally thrown for a loop by the book title.
Then I realized what's wrong. I'm 31, I have a good secure job and I am financially well off. Yet, I am still a virgin, I've never even kissed a woman and I spend inordinate amounts of time on the web trolling Slashdot. Instead of this shit I could be chatting with my coworkers, making friends after work and actually having fun in the real world instead of downing a sixpack every evening alone at home and jerking off to some porn before I go to sleep.
Goddamn I'm depressed. Life is hell.
There's also a website with all the code available at javaalmanac.com, so you don't have to type in every example you want to use in your code.
Maybe it's just me, but I force myself to type in
every example by hand from a book because I find
I have better comprehension of the material down
the road. But then again, I'm not "one who loves
code". I'm more of the writing code to automate
tasks type as apposed to a hardcore, sit in front
of your favorite editor for 8 hours straight making
elaborate things type person. Those guys are special
in a weird but positive way. A guy I used to work
with named Robert Sanders was the type that just
looked at code and "got it". Definitely not my
thang. He'd probably benefit from going to the
website for a cut and paste.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Looked like a good book for beginners or those who don't want to view Javadocs over the 'net.
Unnecessary for anyone who's either comfortable with Javadocs or has done a moderate amount of OOP.
As was stated, you can get just about everything in this book online directly from Sun, for free.
I have never understood printed API references. It's so much easier to be able to do a quick find on a computer. Reminds me of some Linux book that was just printed man pages. Yes I like reading real books rather than looking at a screen, but if I need to reference an API I'm already looking at the screen!
0. Be born into priveliged family in Bangalore or Calcutta
7. Profit!
The one bad thing that strikes me about this book is actually just a simple question: Why should I use it when most of this information is at my fingertips in an IDE?
I like having this sort of info in print, even though what you say is true, it is available from most IDEs. It is nice to be able to put a post-it note or write a reminder in some classes who's method signature are not too intuative.
Having been a java programmer for 3 or so years, I think Java 1.4 is a big step forward, and a lot of the newer packages are great additions (the logging package, for example). The flexability of that package alone makes Java a lot more robust and attractive.So whats the deal with all the book reviews lately? Anyone else suspect that these posts are direct marketing ploys....
On another note, who are the morons that need a Java API book. Why waste your time flipping through pages to find a class definition when you can 'click' on the class name from and alphabetical list from Sun.
Who are these people that buy this trash!?!?
All your base are belong to us!
It is nice to see some good books on Java api coming out. I have the Chang's refrence book that I use often.
Another good source for Java api's and example are java.sun.com and jguru.
In our corporation Java is winning hearts all over due to its scalability and stability. We are migrating to linux and that has been easy as candy.
Java Complete, by Sybex. That book touts itself as a cheap book to learn Java and even has a good dump of the APIs at the end of the book. That said, it has got to be one of the most poory assembled books on Java I have seen. There are a few glimmers of intelligence in there, but as a whole the book collapses under its own poor organization. It's also for an older version of Java...
Hopefully the API listing is the only thing JDA has in common with Java Complete.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
An impressive, 1000 page plus tome. It has four parts, but the first two are the bulk of the book. Part 1 lists each java package. Within a package, it tells of each class and interface and provides examples of how to do often needed tasks. You already need to know java to fully take advantage of this. Part 2 is an alphabetical listing of all classes, from all packages. For each class you can see its ancestors and all members of the class, with calling arguments and return values. Part 3 has miscellaneous topics; most usefully the difference between java 1.3 and 1.4 (the latest), as in the title. Part 4 is basically an index, being a cross reference of classes and interfaces.
.... Sun makes this available on the web as an aid to java programmers. Other websites also publish it. In addition, you can copy the manual and have it available locally on your computer. My mode of programming involves bookmarking the URL and having a browser window dedicated to it during coding. Not just me. In various companies and universities, I've seen others do this.
The sweep of the book is comprehensive and up to date. But of limited use. Part 2, which is half the book, differs in no material way from this URL-
Are you old enough to remember log tables? These were books of logarithms, powers and trigonometric functions. Prior to the advent of pocket calculators, students would have their own copies. They were comprehensive and correct. Now totally redundant. That is what Part 2 reminds me of. Granted, if your computer has no web access, then you need the equivalent of Part 2. But how many programmers today cannot browse?
The book needs to go on a diet.
The three other parts do have some utility. At least you should be sure of that before purchasing
#Wes
How come people can keep creating new books on languages even though there are 10,000 books about it allready out there. They all pretty much repeat each other over and over. Use the newsgroups or web for some real help!
J Moll - PC Load Letter - I know what it means!-
I found the Almanach to be extremely useful in displaying the intended usage for many of the classes. Java builds on numerous desing patterns that can be overwhelming for a novice.
For example just browsing the API I had a hard time figuring out how to use the crypto package to encrypt data. The almanac shows that in ten lines.
In many respects the Almanach is superior to the "Java Cookbook" by O'Reilly because this latter spends way to much time on trivial implementations.
The aspect that I don't like is the huge index(or listing at the end whatever that is). I found that to be totally useless. There are dozens of methods with identical names anyway so finding the one you need is easier to do on the package level in table of contents. This index makes the book unnecessarily bulky.
i.
Why would I ever need to buy a book with the Java api? They aren't updated, don't have hyperlinks, don't support copy/paste, don't open to the correct page when I press help, and aren't free.
I have a copy of one of the earlier editions, and it quickly became one of the most ragged and tattered computer books i owned. Although there is more detailed info available in javadocs, having all the classes, methods, and members available in a print is very helpful. I found it much easier to quickly thumb to a certain class when I couldn't remember the order of some arguments or the name of an attribute.
Just note that no method or attribute descriptions are included in the book, just the method signatures or the attribute types. You have to already know basically what everything does (or be able to deduce it from names), and just use this to jog your memory. So despite what some other posters say, this isn't a beginner's book.
Save it for LOTR TTT...
I'm been tasked with Java development lately (and unfortunatly). In my experience, you buy a book detailing the Java API, then in half a year, it changes and your book is out of date and you can't use it for fear that you might end up using a depricated method. Just buy a java programming concepts book (but even these fade quickly) and use the Javadoc to get your API info. Spend the rest on movie tickets to support the MPAA (oops, did I say that?)
No! If the book was just what's here, it would be just a copy of information of information that is freely available on the internet!
So many books on Java seem to include a copy of the Javadoc documentation. It's just a con to make the book look bigger.
Well done Bruce Eckel for resisting this cheap tactic in the brilliant Thinking in Java.
1.4 is obviously more updated than 1.2, but does that make my Core Java books obsolete in terms of API info? It's still got the concepts of Java (making it non-chuckable), but I am curious if I should pick this book up or just look on the Sun site to check out the new API additions.
I guess it's only $20 or so...
And thanks for the added carriage return at the end of each line. My browser wasn't doing a good enough job of word wrapping and you saved me a lot of hassle.
I see lot's of post saying things like why would I want to read this when I have the free 1.4 API javadocs online?
I agree. The best books aren't copies of the API that tell you all the good things about the language. The best books show you the warts and gotchas of the language. For C++ this book was Scott Meyer's Effective C++. Java has a similarly named and equally useful book Effective Java which I have found invaluable. Not as good but still worth the purchase price is Java Pitfalls
I haven't read More Java Pitfalls Has anyone read this? Is it any good?
But you may know that Java 2 starts at 1.2 and has nothing to do with version numbers.
Did they teach you not to sum apples & oranges at elementary school?
Section 1, In addition to the strict listing, however, are hundreds of examples of how to use the classes; some basic, some obvious, and some you probably haven't seen.
All the examples.
Section 2 provides a listing of every class in the covered packages in alphabetical order, along with all the signature of every public method in those classes.
Java 1.4 spec.Part 3 goes through every major JDK release, starting at 1.0, and tells you everything you could possibly want to know about that release.
I guess you would have to figure this part out yourself, but what real value is it anyway?
I know, I know, it's nice to have this in book form, but the sooner you learn how to parse through what javadoc provides, the better. Especially if you are serious about learning/using java, you need to become familar with javadoc. Plus the APIs are still changing, and the Sun website will always have the most up-to-date information. It takes a while to get used to looking at documentation online, but once you are familar with it, you will be proficent in finding what you want in no time.
The real value of the books seems to be the examples, but they are all on-line too.
Seriously, don't buy this book. If you want something that will truely make you a better Java programmer, get Effective Java. That book is worth its weight in gold.
I haven't actually bought this book yet, but I plan to do so. Not because of the class listings -- as several have mentioned, these are just javadocs on paper -- but because of the examples. I found the book's website while searching for a solution to a particular problem. I was able to use the examples to solve my problem, but that was just the beginning. I found myself browsing through the examples, picking up lots of great little tips and tricks. Sure, a lot of it was old hat, but these examples are really easy to follow and definitely shore up the weak spots in java documentation, which all too often assumes that a method's definition is all you need to understand its proper use.
-monique
It looks the author made a Web site full of examples, the wrote a Perl script to generate the book. Pretty clever way to sell 1000 pages of text, which anyone get free anyway!
That when a language needs a gazillion books to try and win its acceptance, maybe something's wrong with the language.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.
Forget "JD Almanac", it's just trying to muscle
in on David Flanagan's successful J in a Nutshell
books. Flanagans' first five chapters make
up the best overview/tutorial on Java.
The Almanac copies Flanagan's format, but fails
at the quality.
Its not from Wrox neither OReilly.
If it came from O'Really... oh, they made it. Its called Java in a Nutshell: The Almanac, or something like that.
I think Wrox made the same book too, with a twist. Its called: Professional Java Programming: The Almanac. And for each Java Package, theres a chapter about it. Written by a different author. Different authors arent that bad, since all of them come from India. Now this is bad.
I use the html documentation, especially when I want to get a glimpse of how a method is working, but sometimes just pulling a book off the shelf and looking something up feels like the right approach. I've been a buyer of the Developers' Almanac series since the 1998 edition and will continue to buy future editions. Though, if there are to be future editions, I think the publisher should rethink the division between volume 1 and 2, especially if they are not available at the same time.
(Though if these threads are any indication, the market for these books is disappearing. I think the original concept was for Addison-Wesley to provide annual updates, more like a real almanac, but the api's expanded immensely and stopped progressing on a timetable. It seems to be a lot of work to produce these and I wonder if recent editions sell as much as the ones for jdk 1.1 and jdk 1.2)
Color me old-school, I still go over and look up words in the dead tree dictionary. I also find it easier to take in the whole page when it's portrait format rather than landscape. Certainly, it's my failure to get with the times in this brave new world.
Not all of us drink (anymore).
If you don't understand anything I post, please accept that I ate paste as a small boy...
Sorry, but Java's documentation is the best out there. I have never had an easier time learning and being productive with a programming language. I just keep a browser window open with a local copy of the API loaded up, and just scroll down to whatever class I want to look at. It's beautiful! It actually encourages you to look things up, ratehr than floundering around.
At the opposite end is MS's HTML-help MSDN documentation. It's all there, I guess, and complete, but somehow it's just nowhere near as easy to use for me.
I don't intend to troll and I'm sure you held a copy of that book in your hands but how can you seriously write it's concise ? I've seen it in a bookstore the other day and all I can say is that it's big, over 1000 pages and bulky. Regarding it contents, I think it's totally useless. If you install the Winhelp format of the Java documentation (there's one for the JDK1.4 but also the J2EE API and others) you will you find information much quicker (and it's free). A&W books are usually great but that one is a waste in my opinion.
PS: You can find the Winhelp documentations at this address: http://www.confluent.fr/javadoc/javadoce.html
"Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomka !"
All of these books explain the thinking behind the design of the language, the APIs, and common idioms. This is much more valuable information to express in the form of a book than is an API reference. A clickable API reference is freely available from Sun here: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/
p.s.
-cbare