Pure Java 2 is a substantial and focused reference for professional Java programmers. This book begins with an accelerated introduction to Java 2 so that you can quickly understand the new concepts and begin developing your own applications. Professional programmers prefer to learn by examining code, so Pure Java 2 also contains hundreds of programming techniques, complete with well-commented code examples that you can immediately use in your own Java programs.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 8 Ratings

Wonderful, but... - 2000-07-20
Reviewer Rating:
This book has a logical structure, and it is didactically superb and very well written. It is highly recommende for people who want to make the second step, as it picks you up where the typical tutorial stops.

The book is unique in concept, as it doesn't just show you how things can be done, but also how they should be done in order to produce reusable, and object-oriented code. Eg, when Litwak explains multithreading, he shows you that there are in principle two ways to do it: inheriting from the Java class Thread, or implementing the Runnable interface. Ok, that's in "Thinking of Java", too, but Litwak also explains you why he thinks that inheriting from Thread compromises object-orientation. But he is never religious about these things, he just explains you what it possible, and what criteria you might want to consider to make your own decision of how to do it in a real-life project. And this is, what makes this book so valuable: it connects the abstract concepts of object-orientation with the code and advice for real-life programming practice. The book helps you not only to find some solution, but it helps you to find your own way to the most general or the most suitable solution. At last I understand what re-usable code really is, and how I can write it myself!

So, why not five stars? Because there are incredibly many typos as well in the text as in the code examples, especially in the first part or the book. With only little knowledge of oo concepts or Java it is easy to identify them, but they can certainly confuse a reader with no knowledge of the language or objects and such. It's not that bad in part two. It looks as if part II has been written first, and part one was created only shortly before the deadline. Pity! What about a revised edition, SAMS?

A very good introduction to Java 2...but - 2001-05-23
Reviewer Rating:
There are some features of Java2 that this book does not cover. The book consists of three parts, an introduction to java, a deeper explanation of some of the core techniques of Java 2, and an API reference. The introduction has unfortunantely lot of typing errors, so if you are unfamiliar to java, this may be more difficult than it should be. The technique reference is one of the most usefull parts of the book, where there are an deep, weel-documented explanation of some of the core features of java2. The best thing about this book is in fact the small notes, tips and tricks, wich points out a lot of pit-falls which should be avoided. If you are familiar with java, and need to go further and learn more, this is a book for you.

Great java book. - 2000-06-19
Reviewer Rating:
I've been programming in java for 2 years now. This is the fifth java book that I've read. It's the best one so far. The book reviews how to use necessary classes in the jdk that would benefit most java developers. It also sheds light on subjects that other books don't really cover. It teaches you how to code with the jdk, but it also explains what is happening in the java virtual machine so you understand exactly what is happening with your code. Reading this book has really helped me understand programming in java. It's not really geared towards teaching java or object oriented design, but if you have some java experience and you want to take it a step further I would highly recomend this book. There were only 2 minor drawbacks that I saw. First, it doesn't go in depth for some subjects. For example, if your trying to target in on using java swing this book will just give you the general overview but not enough to create a really nice gui. Second, there are minor typos in the code. ..................

Wonderful, but... - 2000-07-20
Reviewer Rating:
This book has a logical structure, and it is didactically superb and very well written. It is highly recommended for people who want to make the second step, as it picks you up where the typical tutorial stops.

The book is unique in concept, as it doesn't just show you how things can be done, but also how they should be done in order to produce reusable, and object-oriented code. Eg, when Litwak explains multithreading, he shows you that there are in principle two ways to do it: inheriting from the Java class Thread, or implementing the Runnable interface. Ok, that's in "Thinking of Java", too, but Litwak also explains you why he thinks that inheriting from Thread compromises object-orientation. But he is never religious about these things, he just explains you what it possible, and what criteria you might want to consider to make your own decision of how to do it in a real-life project. And this is, what makes this book so valuable: it connects the abstract concepts of object-orientation with the code and advice for real-life programming practice. The book helps you not only to find some solution, but it helps you to find your own way to the most general or the most suitable solution. At last I understand what re-usable code really is, and how I can write it myself!

So, why not five stars? Because there are incredibly many typos as well in the text as in the code examples, especially in the first part or the book. With only little knowledge of oo concepts or Java it is easy to identify them, but they can certainly confuse a reader with no knowledge of the language or objects and such. It's not that bad in part two. It looks as if part II has been written first, and part one was created only shortly before the deadline. Pity! What about a revised edition, SAMS?

Good overall look at Java - 2000-07-20
Reviewer Rating:
This is a good book for beginners looking for a reference and HowTo on Java. But does not go into detail about any of the advanced features of Java like Java Beans, etc.

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