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Head First Java
The Good
Of course, you can't learn Java without a good understanding of object-oriented languages. I made fairly heavy going with 'Learning Java' until I decided to dive in head first. Head First Java, that is -- a new book from O'Reilly that has a totally different attitude to teaching than I've seen before in computer books. It also looks like this might be the start of a series from O'Reilly, the website an introduction seem to assume that there will be more 'Head First' titles and I hope so. The style is humorous, full of graphics, cartoons, puzzles, quizzes and crosswords. It reminds me of the textbooks that used to try and teach me geometry and algebra in high school or my daughter's elementary books on Roman and Greek history I purchased for her at the British Museum. The style didn't work to teach me much algebra and geometry, but I wasn't anywhere near as motivated. This time, it worked. In a couple of weeks I worked through the book and finally have Java skills where I can branch off and start coding the projects I had in mind (though something more advanced will be required soon.)
In the introduction the authors examine learning and explain why they designed the book as they did. To quote from one section: "Some of the Head First learning principles. Make it visual. Put the words within or near the graphics. Use a conversational and personalized style. Get the learner to think more deeply. Get -- and keep -- the reader's attention. Touch their emotions." They argue that our brain is tuned to novelty, and that their style provides the novelty to keep your brain turned on. They also provide ten tips for good learning. That's one thing that seems to set this book apart from most other computer books, they say they think of their reader as a learner and indeed that's the way you are treated by the book. You can start to get a feel for their ideas by visiting headfirst.oreilly.com, a site devoted to the series. You can also grab a couple of example chapters from the books web page, which also has the usual marketing info, table of contents and errata.
The BadWhen compared to Learning Java the coverage is not as good. Head First really only covers the basics, up to and including creating a GUI with SWING and then touches a number of others; Learning Java goes on to explore, with a fair depth, network programming, web programming, servlets, applets, Java Beans, XML and other topics that are only touched on briefly in Head First. If the style of learning does not suit you then this will be an incredibly irritating and useless book, I'd give it a try first, though. If it isn't for you then the style of Learning Java might be better.
ConclusionWhen you get down to it, though, the only way to really decide on the worth of a tutorial is to decide how well it teaches. Head First Java excels at teaching. OK, I thought it was silly, I had a hard time making myself do the exercises, fill out the crosswords and solve the puzzles. Then I realized that I was thoroughly learning the topics as I went through the book. Learning Java was doing the same job, but the dry traditional method wasn't doing as well. Both books are well written, designed and constructed -- the style of Headfirst Java just made learning, well, easier.
It would seem to me that the 'Head First' approach is going to work wonderfully for the more 'beginner' topics, books for introducing you to a new style of programming, a new language or a radically different operating system or application. So if you're looking for a book to introduce you to Java then I can recommend Head First Java. Now if I could only find a book as good to introduce me to Common Lisp.
You can purchase Head First Java from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The highlight of my reading would have to have been the erotic imagery left behind by some Barnes and Nobles passer-by (the previous reader of the book left some provacative, awe inspiring bra-busting imagery of his former girlfriend - a little note that accompanied the images detailed a narrative of how these images came to be).
I'm not sure if it's normal to get that excited when reading about an object oriented programming langauge, but I have to say, it was certainly the greatest computer science book that I have ever read in my 35 years.
i have a huge hard on with a cheese burger on top of it & liquid java spew out my ass right now!
I ATE your MOTHERS FACE WITH nothing to relieve me but the dog Is TE CAT WHEN IS EE NOTHING> resoibd WITH TEH code MOCKINGBIRD
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to say, once again: Java still sux.
Its slow, has licensing issues with Sun, and requires the run time env. for people to operate Java programs. For the web it sucks, requiring extra client software. For standalone programs it sucks, it's impossible to code something lightly in Java--too bulky, slow, bloated.
meow
Try Ruby. I started serious programming with Java too, and I thought it was OO, but then I found how wrong I was. Now there are probably langauges even more OO than Ruby like maybe Smalltalk, but from what I hear Ruby is much easier to get started with than Smalltalk.
Java is really just a cleaned-up version of C++ with the glaringly obvious non-OO aspects removed, the preprocessor thrown out, and pointers hidden. As a compiled language it's not bad at all. As an implementation, it's, er... not much fun.
Just wanted to save a few newbies before they start with Java thinking it is the height of OO.
There's a huge glut of programmers on the market with little or no experience using any other programming language other than Java. The dot com years produced millions of Java "programmers" that did not how to do much beyond blindly mimicing the Sun "Pet Store" J2EE example without understanding the fundamental concepts that underpin the technology. The stuff runs adequately and meets the minimum business requirements in many cases (albeit a bit slow). When coding becomes cookie-cutter simple - you can no longer justify the outrageously high salaries Java programmers make - so high paying employers are cut and replaced with much cheaper replacements. Great for businesses - a cheap and readily available labor supply. You've got to be wondering if Sun regrets ever inventing Java in the first place. Afterall, Java runs better on and much more cheaply on x86s than on Sparc. Sparc sales have fallen off a cliff as result. Sun has never been able to recoup its Java R&D cost.
Congrats on choosing Java, its a great language, and far better than javascript which is more like assembly than anything else. The only problem with it is speed: here in the lab we tried using it to control our partical physics experiments but it simply couldn't execute fast enough to deal with the particles before they disappeared (most leptons, Baryons and Hadrons will decay in a few femtoseconds). Further examination showed that C could do the job as it was significantly faster due to being more object oriented and using a just in time compiler.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
If one hasnt written production OOP code by 2003, even 1995, then one is technologically backward and not competant to comment about it.