Best book to learn JAVA 2?

[Taz]

I need to learn JAVA 2 very quickly for a new job. What is the best book out there that is clear and concise and is effectively a crash course in JAVA 2?

I used to be a C developer for 12 years but have not done much development in the last few years so my current development skills are a little rusty although I have dabbled in VB6 on a fairly regular basis.

I had a quick look on Amazon and found the Sams "Teach Yourself Java 2 in 21 Days" seemed to have some favourable reviews.

[Kezzer]

I've got java by dissection which is very good, it teaches the basics of file i/o, objects, inheritance (covers interfaces which is a java specific feature) and about the swing and awt API etc. Pretty nifty book

[Taz]

Thanks KeZZer. There seem to be several "JAVA by Dissection" titles on the Amazon site. Do you have the authors for the book or any other information to narrow the title down?

[Kezzer]

Ira Pohl and Charlie McDowell. But tbh, if you were a C developer for 12 years then surely the java API will do you fine?

[Taz]

That was years ago, KeZZer. I've not done any C for a few years now and no C++ so my development skills are a bit rusty at the moment. That's why I wanted to learn JAVA 2 from the ground up. I did a bit of JAVA 1.1 a few years ago but have forgotten most of that. I'm sure it will all start coming back to me once I get back into programming! Anyway thanks for the info and i'll order that book from Amazon.

[DaBeeeenster]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...080416-5905429

Java in a Nutshell, is meant to be very good.

[DsW]

The Core Java series are meant to be quite good.

Java in a Nutshell is good, but leans towards being more of a reference book rather than a "teach you how to do it" book.

[Kezzer]

He'd only need a reference book though

[DsW]

Possibly, but C isn't an object oriented language so I would suggest that a book with a bit more grounding in object orientation, Java concepts etc. would be more useful.

[yamangman]

You could try the Sun learning centre

https://learningcenter-sai.sun.com/g...eric_index.jsp

[suryad]

You could try Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java and its free from the web.

[PanzerKnight]

i use the Core Java book, very good

[pengellyd]

Taz, What book did you end up getting? And was it any good for you? I'm going to uni soon and will be using Java 2 in my course. Would like to know the basics before going. Any others are welcome to suggest books that have helped them.

[yamangman]

Ivor Hortons Beginning Java 2 - Bargain price on Amazon tbh


http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...520337-5340443

[Kezzer]

Best book ever is Objects, Abstraction, Data Structures and Design using Java by Koffman and Wolfgang. It's my Java bible

[happytechie]

TBH I'd just work through the java tutorial from sun, I think it's available as dead trees but if not it's all free and on line http://java.sun.com iirc

It worked for me when I had to learn Java for my Masters project a few years ago, I was a C programmer learning about object orientated stuff.

I got a job programming in Java full time which I still have so it can't be that bad

HT