Big Java: Programming and Practice

Author: Cay Horstmann List Price: $74.95 Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price ISBN: 0471402486 Publisher: Wiley Text Books (20 December, 2001) Edition: Paperback Sales Rank: 222,161 Average Customer Rating: 3.45 out of 5

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Customer Reviews

Billy Hess

* In case you're wondering "what the heck?" it means to use an elipsis(...) in place of ...

He's a very INDIRECT guy...

so to wrap up, if you are somewhat exposed to java or have some basic understanding of it, this book should help you out quit a bit. if you are a beginner like i was, no, i will not in a million years recommend this book to you. Lastly, if you are already an "expert" or intermediate programmer, this book should be in one of you collections. since the author's just pointing out the big pictures, but omits the detail works, this must be a great REFERENCE book.

Second, the book is well organized and clearly transitions among parts. Each chapter (and most sections within the chapter) have areas devoted entirely to common errors, quality tips, productivity hints, advanced topics, random facts, and a howto guide. These separate sections may not be necessary depending on the readers interest level, but you can tell immediately if you want to skip something. However, I believe that the "unnecessary" sections (such as random facts) keep the book interesting and fresh.

Third, in response to other reviewers:

This book is good for beginners and intermediate programmers. It does not require that you know calculus. It does not ask you to calculate integrals or differentials. It does however, require the reader to know slightly more than basic algebra. Since this is a college level book, and because algebra is the basis for any computer language, it is not shocking that it makes the reader practice those skills.

The only part of the book that assumes that you know "nothing" about computers is chapter 1 (gasp).

In any book, there are going to be exercises that you think are pointless. The solution is amazingly simple(pun intended): don't do the problems! If you have a teacher that makes you do the problems, then complain to your teacher.

There are always a few mistakes in code examples. This is even less surprising in this book because it is very rich with code examples. In addition, the web resources (which is great all around) contain a section for typos in the book that is easily accessed.

A final note. Please don't bash a book that you obviously haven't read much of, and don't make claims such as "requires calculus" when it is obvious that you haven't taken calculus. This book has 25 chapters and over 1100 pages of good information on Java programming and computer science concepts.
If your smart you'll buy it, if you aren't, you'll buy Java for Dummies.

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