In their efforts to parallel their "C++-how to program", the Deitels have only made their "Java -how to program" very confusing for a beginner -Java, unlike C++ is a purely object oriented language, hence it doesn't make sense to see real object oriented programming start in chapter 8 -while the reader is supposed to take whatever is presented in first 7 chapters at face value.

The Deitels spend way too many pages explaining every concept and that accounts for the sheer girth of the book and a lot of it is redundant.

This is a ok book if you want to see a lot of sample code or if you want to try the exercises but definitely not the book if you are a beginner.

I would recommend "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel if you are new to Java and then a look at this book to look at the huge sample code and try out some of the challenging exercises.

Java is not an easy language but if you think you are going to learn it without making big efforts then buy this book. At first you are going to think that Java is so ridiculous that in just on evening you will become a programmer. That's the message behind this book. It's like a faery tale but the reality is very, very different.

This book is terrible. It shows Java concepts on the fly. A small example, an explanation... A small example, an explanation... There is no in depth discussion about anything and the begginer might find himself lost and discouraged in the task of learning Java. Even the way chapters are arranged is wrong! How can you start to build anything using Java without having at least a small knowledge in OOP, the concept over which Java was built on?

Try something else. Don't waste your money like I did. ... A CD with files? Wake up, guys! By the time you buy this book lots and lots of newer versions of every product on the cd-rom will be available for download (for free!). The Core Java series books are much, much better. And they don't come with a disgusting cd.

I remember writing a review of this book in the past, having read 5 chapters of it,was impressed at that time because i was able to create simple gui applications (i.e. user input, computations, etc.). But I nevertheless lost interest after 5 chapters because of too much explanation and thickness of the book , repeating each item quite fairly 2-3 times in every page. After 5 chapters, I still don't know the concept of OOP, much more classes and objects in general. I personally consider this a good book, but target audience should be programmers coming from other programming languages and not for beginners. If you want to get a good grip of OOP get SAMS Teachyourself JAVA 2 platform in 21 days, that's what I used and still reading up to this point, and after 7 days, I thoroughly understand OOP and the power of JAVA.

I would like to congradulate Deitel & Deitel on their series of programming books. I have recently purchased Java How To Program: Third Edition.

I am a student starting my final year of school. I wanted to learn Java as later in life I hope to work in the Software Development Industry. I am new to computer languages but I am learning quickly and thanks to Deitel & Deitel I am enjoying learning how to programme with Java.

If you are considering learning Java then I recommend you purchase this book.

As a student for computer science, I have encountered many programming teaching books.

I have never seen a book that really helped me learning the language.
Ususally the book may help as a reference, but not to learn from it.
Some books have good examples, but still, not enough, or not explained very good.

This book is different.
First, it's fun studying with it.
It doesn't seem as a teaching book. I found myself sometimes reading it as a regular text book. This is good as it helped me concentrate on the material.
It is also funny sometimes. Another good idea.

The examples are clear.
The explenations for the examples make them a lot clearer.

The book covers almost any subject a starting programmer should know.
It also covers many more advanced subject.

As a reference it is also a great book.
Everytime I had to find something to understand, I found it in the book.
And it was easy finding it also.

One last thing,
as a student in the Open University, I can say that if someone wants to learn Java alone, this is the book to choose.

I'm very impressed by the quality of this book. The colorfull printing greatly improves the overall readability. This is a great learning course for programming and Java beginners at the same time. The book emphasizes the delicate balance, between engineering quality and brute performance, which a programmer must strive for. It gives lots of excellent advices and warnings which also make cool breaks along heavily commented code parts and detailled explanations. The course is very progressive : each new program keeps short and adds only one concept or one kind of instruction or instruction use, or one kind of package or Java class. Each chapter ends with a full review of itself : list of new terms, simple exercises with solutions, less easy exercices left to the reader. (Students will feel at home with these ones.) Although the book is not a Java reference, it gives lots of web links and a good companion CD with such links and it tells you where to look at Java or Sun sites all along the text.

I am new to java programming. I started on learning the language several times with different books. And I have a fairly comprehensive computer book shelf at home. Deitel & Deitel is simply the very best java teaching book I have encoutered. However there is allways room to be better, hence 4 stars ;)

This book is fun to read and learn from. The exercises at the end of the chapters are interesting and able to be completed with a little effort. Some of the sections need two or three (or more) readings to understand, but I was eventually able to understand all the text. Because of this book I successfully passed the Sun certification for Java 2 Programming exam.

I have used this book and others from Deitel & Deitel, and am always impressed with the breadth of material, the detail of information, and their straight-forward approach. The authors are also very friendly, and were willing to address questions that I emailed to them. What more can you ask for?. I would recommend them to anyone who wishes for a thorough education on the topics they cover.

I have used this book and others from Deitel & Deitel, and am always impressed with the breadth of material, the detail of information, and their straight-forward approach. The authors are also very friendly, and were willing to address questions that I emailed to them. What more can you ask for?. I would recommend them to anyone who wishes for a thorough education on the topics they cover.

I don't think I need glasses I regularly print documents at 75% and keep my monitor resolution at 1280 by 1024(20-inch). But with the combination of thick fonts, glossy paper, and no line spacing between paragraphs gives me eyestrain after reading a page or two. The book is best not read under strong florescent lights.

The authors are constantly trying to explain multiple things at once (which they do poorly), and when they have a point to make they repeat themselves 3-4 times with various types of text. In each section, they try to give general programming tips, java programming tips (redundant to the section), explain the material of the section, explain the details of a Java program and make a feeble attempt to explain the details of a new concept brought out in the Java program (which you will need to know for the next 10 programs but which wont be explained for 4 chapters). They explain these things all at the same time. The material is poorly organized (the book is organized as if they are using the same template and applying it to Java) and the explanations are weak.

This was a fantastic book in all aspects of the java language. I read it three times last year back to back, and thats unusual with my time. I took the Sun certification course and along with their book, the Java2 certification book, and deitels book I passed the certification. I plan on purchasing the next edition,

The material is presented in a manner that makes it very motivating for the "student". I am a Visual Basic programmer who has to transition to the Java language at work. I appreciate the style of teaching, which is explicit without being patronizing in anyway. I particularly enjoy the Cyber Classroom CD. It is a great companion to the book and helps to reinforce the concepts.

This was the only book I've seen, which covered pretty much everything I needed to learn in Java. In fact, its style in tutoring is very efficient because neither does it bore you with too much details, nor does it confuse you with too little.

The main reason why I liked this book though is because it was the only one that explained inheritance and polymorphism clearly. I consider the clarity of explaining inheritance and polymorphism the most important benchmark for Java books. The reason is because if the author didn't know them well, then he better off not teach the rest of Java; which mostly depend on them.

This is my second book that I purchased with Deitel and Deitel. After reading this book (last summer), I finally decided to post my views on the book on Amazon.

Pros:
1. Covers a wide set of java APIs such as Swing, RMI, Networking, etc etc. (It's on the cover)
2. Good code examples demonstrating the usage of the topic at hand.

Cons:
1. There is no answer book for it. You're left to assume if you answered the exercises in the book correctly or not.
2. They don't need to explain every single line in the code. Even near the end of the book, they don't ease up on this strategy that they used. Every part of the code is scrutinized just so it's hammered into one's head I suppose....

The book is great... The fourth edition I heard is also out so instead of looking at this version, you might want to check out the fourth edition before jumping to buy the third edition.

This is a great book from the training and education point of view, no doubt about it. Starts simple and builds in complexity at a comfortable pace. Completely coded examples with line-by-line explanation of commands and operations, and screen shots of all required output. My complaint is with the flimsy blue-light-special construction of the book itself. It's large in volume (1300+ pages), as it needs to be to provide the detail it does. The first clue that it was destined to fall apart on me was the tissue thin pages. Next was the realization that, even with the same size font, it's roughly the same physical size as two other (a Sam's ASP book and a QUE VB book) books on my shelf, and they each have half as many pages. I went through it cover-to-cover, so it was opened and closed a lot. It began falling apart on me around chapter 5 (there are 25 chapters), and now resembles a folder full of paper as much as a real book. I have many other books that have also been used extensively. Though they look ratty, most of them can still be picked up without dumping the pages all over the desk or floor. This is definitely a good book material-wise, but for the money, the construction should have been much better.

The book is good for someone new to JAVA. I have to recommend it to anyone who already has some programming experience, not to someone just starting out in programming. JAVA is hard to learn but this book makes it "easier" to learn. It starts off simple, like any book does, and gets complex towards the end. (which is good b/c many "real world" applications are based on these complexities) All and all the book is great. Many examples and screenshoots -- an asset that many books don't offer.

I was buying a book mainly for graphics, but this covers your every need except graphic (image) manipulation and AWT (Javas Original GUI). The book covers everything from basic datatypes to connectionless protocols.

I thought this book would be bad, but seeing the level of understanding the author actually has of the book I know I was wrong. Each area has several examples of which help you actually SEE what is going on. Swing (a easy-to-program GUI [in my opinion]) is described very extensively and all code is explained in detail.

If you want to buy a book with virtually everything you need, go for this one. Its price may be a little high but for the content within, its definitely a book to be bought!

I was buying a book mainly for graphics, but this covers your every need except graphic (image) manipulation and AWT (Javas Original GUI). The book covers everything from basic datatypes to connectionless protocols.

I thought this book would be bad, but seeing the level of understanding the author actually has of the book I know I was wrong. Each area has several examples of which help you actually SEE what is going on. Swing (a easy-to-program GUI [in my opinion]) is described very extensively and all code is explained in detail.

If you want to buy a book with virtually everything you need, go for this one. Its price may be a little high but for the content within, its definitely a book to be bought!

This book is excellent for a beginner. For more advanced programmer refer to the separate books on particular topics. Some of the links and info is a little bit outdated, but o/w greate as a reference.

I think that some of the negative reviews are due to two facts: 1. learning any programming language is not easy, and 2. learning Java is definitely not easy. I have been programming for quite a few years, and I find Java very challenging. I think that one shouldn't expect ANY book to make learning Java easy.

That being said, I have a number of Java books Including Sun's "Core Java" series, and I use Sun's online tutorial, but this book is the best. This is truly a college level textbook. It digs deep into the details, it provides good, clear sample code, and it suggests plenty of practice exersizes.

What I would recommend for anyone trying to learn Java is to use several sources (textbooks and tutorials), take your time to understand the basics, and do lots of practice exersizes. Don't waste your money on a course that promises to teach you Java in a few days (yeah right! dream on!). Consider learning Java a long term project, look at lots of sample programs, don't skip any of the basics, and write lots and lots and lots of code.

I am an intermediate skill Java programmer and still refer to those tomes which got me started from time to time, but none is more worn than JHTP. What I love about this book is its comprehensiveness and accuracy. Want to learn about JavaBeans, JDBC, even basic SQL queries. It's all here. And the way the examples are documented and explained is the most intuitive I have ever seen. At the end of each chapter are long lists of important points to know as well as involved quizzes and exercises. Some of the exercises are programming classics that any hardcore programmer should know how to build and run. This book is awesome. My only complaint is the scant coverage of garbage collection and the inner workings of the JVM (but that's where Bill Venners comes in).

Very poorly written and badly organized, but it might make a good reference book because it is comprehensive. Instead of presenting related material together, it throws out bits and pieces for you to organize yourself. I would also bet that they did some cutting and pasting with material from their other programming books like C.

It was the required book for a summer class. We covered the first half of the book...a mere 650 pages of poorly written technical material (the book is 1300+ pgs). Nealy everyone in the class was scrambing to find alternative resources, and those who didn't find them were lost. Seems like the people that are saying it is a good book for beginners probably weren't when they read the book. Easily the worst textbook I have ever read in my life, and I have taken about 60-70 college courses (undergraduate and graduate).

While designing a book for both the novice and the expert might sound like a good idea, in practice it doesn't work.

I am not sure what other Java Books that the other readers have, but I have a collection of 16. Four general books and the rest that specialize. Anyway, I have actually read about 50% of the content of all the books and about 80% of the content of the deitel book and I can tell you that it is the best general book that I own or have seen. I had almost given up on the idea of learning broad java concepts. Most books go from really basic to super tough, or you get stuck with the Microsoft platform. This was the fourth Java book I have purchased. This book allowed my knowledge to grow by leaps and bounds. The authors walk you through all the concepts and naturally progress to more advanced topics using ""EXAMPLES"". This book is a must for anyone wanting to learn Java from the beginning. Thanks Deitels.

I bought this book on Amazon because of it's low price....

This book is really good. It is comprehensive and uses swing to explain Java concepts clearly. It has tons of examples. The reason I bought it is because it is prescribed for my java class but I think it makes an excellent reference book for swing and applets (GUI).

It explains the concept of object oriented design through hands on exercises. At the end of every chapter it outlines "Good Programming Practices" , "Common Programming Errors" etc.

Overall a wonderful book, MUST BUY !

On an earlier occasion I rated this book two stars (if my memory serves me right). I have been feeling guilty about it now that I have spent many productive hours going through the book and less-than-productive hours on other Java books.

A particularly good feature of the book is the use of short, COMPLETE, useful programs, with a complete accounting of the inputs and outputs (multiple outputs where applicable).

I am therefore re-rating this four stars or 4 1/2, and I am looking forward to the same authors' more advanced book on Java when it comes out.

On an earlier occasion I rated this book two stars (if my memory serves me right). I have been feeling guilty about it now that I have spent many productive hours going through the book and less-than-productive hours on other Java books.

A particularly good feature of the book is the use of short, COMPLETE, useful programs, with a complete accounting of the inputs and outputs (multiple outputs where applicable).

I am therefore re-rating this four stars or 4 1/2, and I am looking forward to the same authors' more advanced book on Java when it comes out.

I read this book cover to cover every chapter three times last summer. It is the most valuable java book I own. I was able to use every topic in my development work and research. This book along with the Complete JAVA Certification guide book and sun educational java courses prepared me to complete the java certification exams.

This is a great course on Java - if you are attending a FIVE YEAR FULL-TIME CLASS and don't ever need to use it as a non-linear reference. I read the first 50 pages... And I still wasn't IN chapter 1! A LOT of time was spent bragging about the courses the authors teach, explaining that the authors are revolutionary educational wunderkinds... when really they are long-winded show-offs. This book was a required purchase for a college Java class I was taking, and I really resent having had to purchase such a useless book.

I was introduced to this book as a college textbook. At the end of the semester, I kept reading it until I finished Chapter 25. Two years later, working as a Software Engineer, I still look at the book once or twice a week. Whenever I need a simple demonstration of how to use a Java class, or how a particular Java feature works, I can almost always find an example in this book.

I have adopted the Deitel coding style, and noticed other engineers using it. You end up with clear, easy to follow code, sensible naming, and methods that are clearly defined without being overly long.

Other books on specific Java topics do provide much more detailed information. As a general reference with a lot of examples, this book is the best.

Readers that rate this book highly obviously do not understand object-oriented programming. Doesn't anyone find it ironic that a book about an object-oriented programming language repeats the same code over and over again?

If you know absolutely nothing about Java and very little about programming in general ... you might find this book useful. It takes example source code and explains what the code is doing statement by statement. At times, it explains too much.

For experienced programmers who just want a reference to the Java language commands and syntax ... well, it's pretty much useless. A lot of the information is there, but it's not easy to find.

This book is very good in one thing, that is it does give many examples, by which you can get the feel of complex Java topics like Multithreading, RMI, Java Beans, Servlets, and Networking rather easily. But this book is atrocious in using and in emphasizing the concept of Object Oriented Programming (OOP). In fact basically it is a C programming book with Java syntax and methods. This is because authors have used Java classes pretty much the way one can use struct in C++ (make fields private and methods public). Otherwise where else will you see such murder of venerable OOP principle of encapsulation and information hiding, where the constructor does the work of 10 methods (like a GOD constructor) and the class that is supposed to be hidden has its own driver program. I give authors lot of credit for being excellent C programmers, but my doubts about their OOP knowledge will not disappear, unless I see a better product OOP product. (I have not seen their C book, but I am sure that it is excellent).

This book guides the reader through in a systematic and logical way. I find it rather easy to grasp concepts from this book than from most other computer books. Very good for self-study! However, to learn more in-depth details about Java, a more advanced book should be used.