Special Edition Using Java

by Jerry Ablan and Edward Toupin

It seems like every Java book these days claims to be the ultimate resource on the language. The second edition of Special Edition Using Java is a 1,100-plus-page tome that may actually live up to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0789706040
• ISBN13: 9780789706041
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Que
• Length: 800 Pages
• Weight: 3.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.4" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

One massive tome - but the standards keep changing

This book is nothing if not large. This was QUEs attempt to capture the entire spectrum of JAVA and make it easy to understand (a task that they accomplished) but then the standards changed again. This is still a great book for learning Java; but, you will have to move on to other resources for news on the updates

SPECIAL EDITION JAVA DEFINITELY WORTH LOOKING AT!

With all the hoopla flying around right now about Java, I decided I had to take a look at the language. I had been doing my writing in C/C++, but the thought of writing ONE program to work on many platforms won me over. I didn't know much about the language, but after my purchase of Special Edition Using Java, that has changed. I know that may sound a bit ridiculous, but the book packs everything a beginner needs to know into a little over 850 pages. How is this book different from the rest? To be honest, I can't tell you as this is the first one I've purchased for Java, but the book IS READABLE. I repeat, the BOOK IS READABLE. It contains a lot of programming jargon, but a gloassary in the back helps with it. The book starts off giving a short, but information packed history of how Java came about. It gives in depth information on various Java programming environments available and Java compilers other than Sun's JDK. It has a CD containing the the JDK from Sun, although it is slightly out of date (the newest as of this writing being the JDK v1.1 beta). It does, however, give information on where and how to get the JDK plus complete installation instructions. The book never centers itself around one platform, always showing various techniques from both Windows and Macintosh systems. It also gives a very in depth discussion on the security pro's and con's in Java (the pro's obviously winning out on this one!). Not only does it give great coverage to writing applets, but once you feel confortable with this, you can go on to writing complete Java applications! The CD-ROM included is the Java-SIG CD-ROM with lots of applet source code including code for Guestbooks and more! It also includes some chapters from some of Que's other books in writing HTML code and more! IN BRIEF: This book is excellent if you are willing to spend some time reading before jumping right into Java. If you have a basic understanding of C/C++, this book is for you! If not, you may find yourself lost at times. I hadn't used object-oriented programming and the book explained it to me very well. I had, however, used C/C++ before. Just another book in Que's excellent line of titles