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Learning Java: What a Choice!

By Andrew Binstock

January 1, 2007 — (Page 1 of 2)
In his remarkable little book “The Paradox of Choice,” Barry Schwartz discusses the downside of having too many choices at the store: too much time deciding between items that are different in minor ways, uncertainty over whether you’ve bought the best item, and because of these factors, an inability to completely enjoy your purchase. For some items, like crackers or jeans, this dilemma is not terribly important, because the cost of the item is low enough. However, when it comes to items that require a time investment—such as books—you do want to make the choice correctly the first time.

One programming area with a surfeit of choices is Java programming textbooks. There are at least several solid options, beyond the hopelessly optimistic popular titles, such as “Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours” and “Java in 21 Days.” I want to focus on the best books, which all presume you already know how to program. As you’ll see, most of these books have a lot in common, and several look enough alike that your choice could easily be based on a coin flip rather than a long, deliberate process.

The most famous Java textbook is Bruce Eckel’s magnum opus, “Thinking in Java” 4th Edition (Prentice Hall PTR). I do mean magnum: It tips in at 1,482 pages. This book was made famous by Eckel’s decision to make earlier editions available free online. This edition is not downloadable, but the previous ones (which cover Java through 1.4) are still at mindview.net/Books.

Eckel’s text has two distinguishing traits: First, he drills deeply into many of the implementation aspects of the language, so that you truly understand how your Java code runs. The other trait is his deep understanding of object orientation. He frequently relates features of Java to prototypical OO designs and to other OO languages, such as C++.

Despite its length, the book isn’t complete. For example, Eckel never discusses resource bundles, which are a wonderful feature of Java. Eckel’s code takes some getting used to. He uses a large font, so his style is cramped trying to get everything to fit in one page. My only serious gripe is the heft of the book. At nearly 5 pounds, it’s hard to hold and carry. To evaluate this text online, download the previous version and you’ll get a good idea of how thoughtfully this book presents Java.

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