What are some Books on Java?

As a veteran developer at Sun, the author shares his considerable insight into the design choices made over the years in Sun's own Java libraries (which the author acknowledges haven't always been perfect). Based on his experience working with Sun's best minds, the author provides a compilation of 57 tips for better Java code organized by category. Many of these ideas will let you write more robust classes that better cooperate with built-in Java APIs. Many of the tips make use of software patterns and demonstrate an up-to-the-minute sense of what works best in today's design. Each tip is clearly introduced and explained with code snippets used to demonstrate each programming principle.

Early sections on creating and destroying objects show you ways to make better use of resources, including how to avoid duplicate objects. Next comes an absolutely indispensable guide to implementing "required" methods for custom classes. This material will help you write new classes that cooperate with old ones (with advice on implementing essential requirements like the equals() and hashCode() methods).

The author has a lot to say about class design, whether using inheritance or composition. Tips on designing methods show you how to create understandable, maintainable, and robust classes that can be easily reused by others on your team. Sections on mapping C code (like structures, unions, and enumerated types) onto Java will help C programmers bring their existing skills to Sun's new language. Later sections delve into some general programming tips, like using exceptions effectively. The book closes with advice on using threads and synchronization techniques, plus some worthwhile advice on object serialization.

Whatever your level of Java knowledge, this title can make you a more effective programmer. Wisely written, yet never pompous or doctrinaire, the author has succeeded in packaging some really valuable nuggets of advice into a concise and very accessible guidebook that arguably deserves a place on most any developer's bookshelf.

Topics covered:

• Best practices and tips for Java
• Creating and destroying objects (static factory methods, singletons, avoiding duplicate objects and finalizers)
• Required methods for custom classes (overriding equals(), hashCode(), toString(), clone(), and compareTo() properly)
• Hints for class and interface design (minimizing class and member accessibility, immutability, composition versus inheritance, interfaces versus abstract classes, preventing subclassing, static versus nonstatic classes)
• C constructs in Java (structures, unions, enumerated types, and function pointers in Java)
• Tips for designing methods (parameter validation, defensive copies, method signatures, method overloading, zero-length arrays, hints for Javadoc comments)
• General programming advice (local variable scope, using Java API libraries, avoiding float and double for exact comparisons, when to avoid strings, string concatenation, interfaces and reflection, avoid native methods, optimizing hints, naming conventions)
• Programming with exceptions (checked versus run-time exceptions, standard exceptions, documenting exceptions, failure-capture information, failure atomicity)
• Threading and multitasking (synchronization and scheduling hints, thread safety, avoiding thread groups)
• Serialization (when to implement Serializable, the readObject(), and readResolve() methods)

Table of Contents:

• Dive In (a quick dip into Java)
• Welcome to Objectville (intro to OO)
• Know your Variables (understanding Java types: primitives, object references, pass-by-value)
• How objects behave (instance variables and methods)
• Extra-strength methods (writing more complex code)
• Using the Java Library (solving problems with the API)
• Better Living in Objectville (inheritance, OO design, abstract classes)
• Serious Polymorphism (interfaces, more OO design, polymorphism)
• Life and Death of an object (constructors and memory management / garbage collection)
• Do the Math (static methods and variables, Math methods, Wrappers, and number formatting)
• Risky Behavior (handling exceptions)
• A very graphic story (GUI intro, inner classes, event handling)
• Work on your swing (more GUI, layout managers and Swing components)
• Saving objects (object serialization and file I/O)
• Make a connection (networking: sockets and server sockets)
• Release your Code (deployment: code organization, packages, executable JARs, and Java Web Start)
• Distributed Code (deployment via RMI and Servlets)

Like Smiley's previous titles, the salient feature of this text is the author's scenario-based presentation style. Instead of addressing the reader directly, Smiley simulates the experience of about 18 first-semester programming students facing Java for the first time. As the students develop a grade calculation project in Java (and improve it with object-oriented features later on), basic questions are raised and answered with the reader "overhearing" the author's consistently clear and patient explanation of key programming concepts.

While this approach is certainly not for those in a hurry, it can do the trick for the programming newbie. With an extensive Q&A for each step, Smiley covers most every conceivable obstacle and confusion. (The questions presented here are drawn from his extensive real-world teaching experience.)

After covering the basics of today's iterative software development cycle (a reminder to plan before you write any code), the book implements a grade-averaging program used for several departments at a hypothetical college. Smiley rehearses the discussions of the potential users of this application, as well as the students who then build it. The simple program is a good one as it allows the author to introduce basic Java syntax, as well as fundamental programming concepts (like variables and loops), without getting too bogged down in complexity.

Once the basic program has been built, Smiley introduces using objects to solve the same problem. His guide to basic object-oriented design, as well as how to code basic objects in Java, is once again clear and sensible. If the "big picture" behind using objects has eluded you, the practical presentation offered here may well help things click. By the end of the book, the final version of the program gets enhanced with support for arrays, plus a basic graphical user interface built with simple Swing components.

Most introductory programming texts try to cover everything at once, a temptation that's especially great with the rich (and complex) Java platform. The streamlined set of lessons here help make this title a good choice for Java newbies who want a patient and really approachable beginner's tutorial.

• Generic programming, restrictions and limitations, type bounds, wilcard types, and generic reflection
• Swing GUI development, including input validation and other enhancements
• Exception handling and debugging, including chained exceptions, stack frames, assertions, and logging
• Streams and files, the new I/O API, memory-mapped files, file locking, and character set encoders/decoders
• Regular expressions using the powerful java.util.regex package
• Inner classes, reflection, and dynamic proxies
• Application packaging and the Preferences API

The seventh edition of Core Java 2, Volume I, covers the fundamentals of the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). A no-nonsense tutorial and reliable reference, this book features thoroughly tested real-world examples. The most important language and library features are demonstrated with deliberately simple sample programs, but they aren't fake and they don't cut corners. More importantly, all of the programs have been updated for J2SE 5.0 and should make good starting points for your own code. You won't find any toy examples here. This is a book for programmers who want to write real code to solve real problems.

Volume I concentrates on the fundamental concepts of the Java language, along with the basics of user-interface programming and provides detailed coverage of

• Object-oriented programming
• Reflection and proxies
• Interfaces and inner classes
• The event listener model
• Graphical user-interface design with the Swing UI toolkit
• Exception handling
• Stream input/output and object serialization
• Generic programming

• Multithreading - including the java.util.concurrent library, locks, condition objects, futures, thread pools, thread-safe collections, threads and Swing
• Collection classes - collections framework, concrete collections, and generic utility methods
• Annotations and metadata - using annotations to automate programming tasks, JDK 5.0 standard annotations, the apt tool for source-level annotation processing, and bytecode engineering
• Advanced Swing and AWT - lists, trees, tables, and other advanced components; image processing and printing
• JavaBeans™—including property editors, customizers, and long-term persistence
• XML—DOM and SAX parsers, XPath, and XSL transformations

The seventh edition of Core Java™ 2, Volume II, covers advanced user-interface programming and the enterprise features of the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE). Like Volume I (which covers the most important language and library features), this book has been completely updated and revised for J2SE 5.0. All of the sample programs have been updated and carefully crafted to illustrate practical solutions to the type of real-world problems professional developers encounter.

Volume II includes new sections on annotations and other J2SE 5.0 enhancements, along with complete coverage of:

• Multithreading
• Distributed objects
• Databases
• JNDI and LDAP
• Advanced GUI components
• Native methods
• XML processing
• Network programming
• Collection classes
• Advanced graphics
• Internationalization
• JavaBeans
• Annotations