[PLUG] Java book recommendations

[Barry Roomberg <broom@voicenet.com>]

Somebody asked about which books might be good for Java.

My library includes about 5 Sun ones, including:
(just glancing to the local bookshelf, as opposed to my office)
Core Java 1.2 - Horstman/Cornell
Java 1.2 by Example - Jackson/McClellan
Just Java 1.2 - van del Linden --- Good starter

My O'reilly ones include Java in a Nutshell, Java Examples
in a Nutshell.

While I like the Just Java 1.2 as a starter, what REALLY
did it for me was :

The Complete Java 2 Certification Study Guide
by Roberts / Heller / Ernest.
Pub: Sybex

Going through the tests in the end of each chapter,
(and I mean actually TAKING THEM, as opposed to glancing),
really showed what I missed.  I would not allow myself
to go to the next chapter until I aced (comfortably)
the tests.

Also, the Sun CBT tutorials are OK for an intro, but don't
expect to retain ANYTHING.  I hate CBTs because you loose
the ability to just "discover" neat stuff, and they are
horrible for looking backwards to things you should have 
learned but didn't.  Also, the calculator example that you
build it a classic example of poor design, I cut about 90% 
of the code out when I was done.

Of course, once you are coding, you need an online reference
to the APIs, such as (eek).  I just went to my Nestscape toolbar
and saw that I removed my Java API ref (ran out of space, and haven't 
coded in Java in about 6 months).  Sorry.  There are many available,
search out Google.

Then you NEED a real project to force you to use what you
just pretended to learn.  I had a multi-screen, 80 field
data entry project, which would then communicate over tcp/ip
to a mainframe, which did field validations, ebcdic translation,
and a bunch of other stuff.  I wrote it as a sub-contractor.  The
primary person on the project claimed to be a Java guru, but he
never did anything requiring user interaction (hugely different).
When doing field validations, it's really nice to be able to 
sub-class a field->numeric only->positive int only, etc.

So my code had to be good enough that he could understand it, and
then present as his own, proudly.

It worked out well, except now he holds my "regular" code to
a far higher standard, knowing how good I can be.

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