Java The Complete Reference, 8th Edition 8th Edition

I studied Java programming as part of my third level college course and I really enjoyed it and was quite good at it too so when the course finished I didn't want to lose my Java skills, I wanted to expand them, so I went looking for a book to help me do that and I bought this. Right now I'm still reading through it and the parts I already know I just skim over, but I have to say, the book is very well structured and laid out. A non-programmer could pick this up and start learning Java programming. The book starts out simple enough and takes each Java command in turn, explaining the command and offering sample code so you can see the command in action. I would have loved to have worked form this book on the course.Later on the book will venture into graphics and networking, areas I did not study on the course and am interested in studying myself from this book. Given how well structured the book is, I am optimistic of the quality of the subject matter when I get to it.If you are a complete beginner or a novice who has some knowledge of Java and want to build on it, or even a professional Java programmer and just want a good reference manual to have at hand, I highly recommend this book!!

The Good:I use this book as a reference for very clear examples on how to do something. If the book does cover a topic, you can be sure that the explanations are concrete and very easy to understand. The book absolutely shines for its intended purpose. It makes a great supplemental book for most folks learning Java as an additional resource.There is an absolutely fabulous example of a Swing application at the end of the book. It shows how to implement the Observer pattern, manage button states and threading within a Swing application. You can also get a general idea of how to architect a moderately complex Swing application from this example.The table of contents is very well organized. For those without an electronic copy, this is of great value.The Bad:I do not solely recommend this book for someone completely new to Java. It misses on some key areas. For example, the chapter on Inheritance does not cover using @Override when overriding methods. Yet, in the same chapter it discusses how you can accidentally Overload a method without even mentioning this annotation. @Override is briefly mentioned later as a type of annotation but it does not explain good practices, how to use it, etc. Examples that use overriding themselves, do not use @Override! The concept of downcasting is not covered specifically. It's not until the chapter on I/O that isinstance is covered and its very briefly explained.While I pointed out a great Swing example above, the book completely excludes any reference to SwingWorker. This is a great feature that was added in Java 6 for threading Swing applications.There are no details on how to write hashCode methods for data objects. Again, I believe this points back to the weak coverage of Overriding methods. If your read this book end-to-end, you will have no idea what this entails when you start to manage collections of objects. Even a more antiquated book such as Ivor Horton's "Learning Java" covers this topic with great detail.

This is one of the clearer computer books which I've read. It gives complete programs when illustrating points. These are also available for download. Having complete programs makes the context clear. Often with computer books, there isn't enough context, so you don't know when you're allowed to use a particular construction.As an eighth edition, it shows some of its history. Sometimes, there is a more modern way to do something, so the reader should be alert for this before investing too much time reading a part in great detail. For example, AWT vs. Swing.Java has so many classes and definitions that the idea of a "complete" reference is a bit silly. There are many predefined variables and methods which are not mentionned in this book. Oracle has quite a bit of documentation on line. The book is an excellent starting point. After a month, I feel pretty comfortable programming in Java. (I have experience in C++. But the book often notes differences between Java and C/C++.)

Herbert Schildt is the best programming author out there in my opinion. I have been buying his "complete reference" books for over 20 years. Herbert's writing style has high information density and his method of explaining things really clicks with me. His programming examples are the best I have ever seen. They are only as long as they need to be illustrate the point. There is no irrelevant code to wade through. The complete reference is a tall order but he has covered every topic I have needed to reference so far. If I could only own one java programming book this would be it.

This book is well organized, well written, and thoroughly describes the Java Language with clear descriptions and many examples. Part I (~350 pages) describes the Java language, Part II (~550 pages) describes the Java Library, Part III (~85 pages) describes Software Development using the Java Beans IDE, and Part IV (~60 pages) develops two applications from start to finish, one developing financial applets and servlets, and the other developing a download manager for the Internet. There is also a six page Appendix describing the use of documentation comments (/** comments) with 19 embedded commands. I expect to use this book as a primary reference for years.

Seems to be a good reference to the core functions of the java programing language it is a beginner book and focuses on teaching OOP programing with Java. Its easy to read and haven't found any problems with the source code as of yet.