The Deitels' groundbreaking How to Program series offers unparalleled breadth and depth of programming concepts and intermediate-level topics for further study. The books in this series feature hundreds of complete, working programs with thousands of lines of code. This edition is completely up-to-date with The Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 1.5. Now includes topics such as autoboxing, enumerations, enhanced for loops, static import statements, variable-length argument lists, and much more. Presents each new concept in the context of a complete, working program, immediately followed by one or more windows showing the program's input/output dialog. Enhances the Live-Code Approach with syntax coloring. Provides Helpful Programming Tips, all marked by Good Programming Practices, Common Programming Errors, Error-Prevention Tips, Performance Tips, Portability Tips, Software Engineering Observations, Look and Feel Observations. Includes CD-ROM with every book that contains Java TM 2 Platform, Standard Edition 1.5, Netbeans, Apache Tomcat, JCreator LE version, jEdit, jGRASP, BlueJ, MySQL, source code for all the book's examples, and Hyperlinks to valuable Java demos and Internet resources. A valuable reference for programmers and anyone interested in learning the Java programming language.
I have three Deitel books. They are all comprehensive, full of examples and quite simply boring. They teach you what you need, but in a way reminiscent of a lifeless professor that has lost all passion. There are better books for learning and there are better books to serve as reference.
This book has a special place in my heart. It was the first book I learned Java with when I got into software engineering. In addition to that, it was one of the first editions, and I found a spelling mistake, submitted a correction to the authors, and promptly received a thank-you email from one of the Deitls.
Nearly put me off programming, which I love! :-/ Verbose and bloated explainations, bludgeons reader with extraneous details, not focused, and very dry read. Some examples are decent, but it is a bad introduction to Java, it vacillates between being a programming primer and comprehensive Java textbook.
I would recomend Head First Java, it is a far gentler introduction and a lot more fun to read!
At the time that I read this, this was one of the better books on introductory Java that exists then. It is a great learning companion for the beginners in Java. It is a very easy read with plenty of code examples and exercises.
4.75* I think is fair to add my classes books to my read pile! About the book: A really good book, simple to understand and very didactic, must try out the exercises because, you know... is always good to have any experience ...
The Deitel How to Program series of programming books are the worse textbooks ever. I taught computer programming and was puzzled why these books are even mentioned as possible text. They are disorganised and haphazard in introducing programming topics. There are no overview of how the programming constructs fit into the object-oriented concepts. The examples are unnecessarily complex and burden beginners with awful lots of details instead of getting them focused on mastering each concept. Everything sounds like a cookbook with simply "how to..." but no explanations of "why" or "when". The entire text is overwhelmingly verbose. These are the last books that you should ever use. Zero stars if this is possible.
The fourth edition was the one responsible to dive me into Java, full of comprehensible examples regarding the networking and concurrency methods with Servlets, JSP and Threads. Future versions just mentioned them and used them somewhat within application servers, but explained only superficially. However, although that edition detailed well the underlying technologies that power systems and frameworks today, the book is verbose and somewhat tedious. It demands willpower to follow through and go all the way around, not just in the 4th edition, but in the futures as well.
3.0 out of 5 stars An OK Java Book -- Not as Good as Their Other Books September 22, 2006
This book follows the Deitels' standard format and content used in the other two of their books I've read ("C++ How to Program (4th Edition)," and "C How to Program (Fourth Edition)"). As before, the teaching method, programming style, most of the examples used, and most of the problems presented are largely the same but have been rewritten to a Java perspective. If you've read and liked any of the Deitels' other books, this book will be fine for you and you'll know pretty much what to expect from it.
However, note that I'm rating this book slightly lower than those other two books: 3 stars out of 5 instead of 4 stars out of 5. This isn't really for any shortcoming of the book. Instead, it's because of the "accelerated" aspect of the book's structure. In this book, the Deitels push forward the use of Java GUI elements via optional sections. Theoretically, this should appease some of those who disparage similar books for not emphasizing the "flavor" of Java. Unfortunately, since the Deitels specify that the book is for anyone from absolute beginners to professionals, this can lead to confusion. Simply put, an absolute beginner to programming (and this book seems to emphasize that audience more than the other two books), will have a tough time understanding Java GUI methods even before they've been presented with the basics of all programming languages. The Deitels would have been better off ignoring that aspect of the language until at least after Chapter 7. Unfortunately, since a first course in programming would normally consist of just those first seven chapters, that would give students no exposure to the Java "flavor." Of course, I'm torn over whether or not that would be a good thing. Since the whole world is GUI now, I can see a reason for teaching it up front. But, since those first seven chapters cover the programming structures inherent in almost all high-level languages and are definitely for people who've never programmed before, focusing on good software engineering and structured coding techniques is probably much more important.
Anyway, in a nutshell, I think the accelerated GUI material violates the real intended audience of the book: beginners. So, overall, I rate this at 3 stars out of 5 and give the usual Deitel caveat that the book is more oriented towards beginners than professionals (though the book is extremely thorough by the end).
Java has evolved quite a bit since I read this book, but I still have fond memories of everything it taught me. In part, it actually makes me sad to see how the language evolved since this came out.
This book is everything you want in a text teaching programming through the lens of a particular language. Printing the pages in color is key; many programming textbooks go black and white to save on cost, but showing syntax highlighting in examples correctly is critical.
Beyond that, this text is well thought out, well written, and keeps the right level of scope when going through examples.
I'm not sure if there's an updated version or spiritual successor but any programming textbook author could learn a lot from how this book was written.