A hands-on guide to the Java programming language, The Java™ Tutorial, Fourth Edition is perfect for any developer looking for a proven path to proficiency with Java SE. This popular tutorial "from the Source" has been completely revised and updated to cover Version 6 of the Java Platform, Standard Edition.

Written by members of the Java Software team at Sun Microsystems, this book uses a tested, interactive approach and features real-world problems that help you learn the Java platform by example.

New to this edition are chapters on generics, collections, Java Web Start, the platform environment, and regular expressions. Key sections, including the Threads, I/O, Object-Oriented Programming Concepts, and Language Basics chapters have been completely rewritten to reflect reader feedback and to cover new features added to the Java SE 6 platform. A new appendix contains information on how to prepare for the Java Programming Language Certification exam.

As with the previous editions, you will find clear explanations of the fundamentals of objects, classes, and data structures, as well as detailed coverage of exceptions, I/O, and threads. All of the popular features that made this book a classic have been retained, including convenient summaries at the end of each section and Questions and Exercises segments to help you practice what you learn.

The accompanying CD-ROM is filled with valuable resources including the latest Java SE software (the JRE, JDK, Java API spec, and the guide documentation), the code samples from this book, and solutions to the questions and exercises.

The Java™ Series is supported, endorsed, and authored by the creators of the Java technology at Sun Microsystems, Inc. It is the official place to go for complete, expert, and definitive information on Java technology. The books in this series provide the inside information you need to build effective, robust, and portable applications and applets. The Series is an indispensable resource for anyone targeting the Java™ platform.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 6 Ratings

The basics and then some - 2007-02-22
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a terrific introduction to the Java programming language. It has been written to coincide with the release of Version 6 of JSE (Java Standard Edition). I had not seen the previous editions of this book, but I was quite impressed with the entirety of this edition. In particular, I really liked the organization. There is a brief chapter that introduces you to the basic recipe of writing Java programs on various platforms, and then the book gets down to business with object-oriented concepts first, before it tackles any other issue. Next it tackles the basics of the Java language specifically - variables, operators, expressions, control flow, classes and objects, and then interfaces and inheritance. This gives the novice an idea of how to do very basic programs in Java that include its object-oriented facets. Next, the more elegant concept of generics is introduced. The book makes it clear not only how to use them, but why you would - they add stability to your code by making bugs more detectable at compile time. Oddly enough, the next chapter is where the author chooses to introduce the creation and usage of packages. This is generally saved to the end of most books, since bundling classes and interfaces into packages is not something that the novice Java programmer needs up front, but it is a well-written and well-illustrated chapter on the subject. Next the author returns to more basic Java topics - numbers and strings, exceptions, and basic I/O. It is hard to do anything meaningful in Java without a grasp of these topics, and the book does an especially good job of explaining the confusing world of Java I/O.

The chapter on the Java Collections Framework is made easier by the previous chapter on generics. The chapter on concurrency is well done, and catches you up to concurrent processing on the Java platform as it exists in Java 5.0 and later. Regular expressions will probably be old hat if you are from the world of Unix scripting, but this chapter does not make any assumptions and explains the concept from the beginning and then how that concept is implemented in Java. Next is an oddly practical chapter on the platform environment that includes issues like system utilities and the PATH and CLASSPATH environment variables that you almost never see published in a book. Usually, you see Swing explained along with exceptions, but since properties and exceptions have already been covered, this makes explaining the complex issue of GUI implementation with Swing a bit easier. The book concludes with chapters on JAR files, Java Web Start, and the ancient topic of Applets, which, after all, is the reason Java was such a hot language in the first place. Appendix B is a handy one on preparing for Java Programming Language Certification, which was not the purpose of this book, but it certainly is a useful tool in this process.

Each chapter concludes with questions and programming exercises to test your knowledge. The book clearly explains each topic, has plenty of good illustrations, and lots of sample programs to illustrate the points being made. If you are a beginning Java programmer, I can't see a better way of picking up the Java language in its most modern form than this book. The following is the table of contents:

Chapter 1. Getting Started
Chapter 2. Object-Oriented Programming Concepts
Chapter 3. Language Basics
Chapter 4. Classes and Objects
Chapter 5. Interfaces and Inheritance
Chapter 6. Generics
Chapter 7. Packages
Chapter 8. Numbers and Strings
Chapter 9. Exceptions
Chapter 10. Basic I/O
Chapter 11. Collections
Chapter 12. Concurrency
Chapter 13. Regular Expressions
Chapter 14. The Platform Environment
Chapter 15. Swing
Chapter 16. Packaging Programs in JAR Files
Chapter 17. Java Web Start
Chapter 18. Applets

good starting book - 2008-02-13
Reviewer Rating:
So far I'm on chapter 5 and everything is fine except for inheritance and interfaces I think that the explanations and the examples are confusing, but I do recommend this book.

Useful, easy, contains CD - 2009-03-18
Reviewer Rating:
This book is basically just the online tutorials, but it is much much easier to go through them in book form. I found the book easy to read and a helpful reference to flip through. It includes a CD which contains an only slightly out of date Java 6.x and all the trimmings, plus the tutorials and source code for the example. Better to get a new Java from Sun if you are seriously going to use the language, but the one on the CD should be good enough to experiment with.

Great for java beginners - 2008-08-30
Reviewer Rating:
This is an excellent book for java beginners. Indepth explanation and easy to understand and learn.

Well paced Java Tutorial - 2008-04-22
Reviewer Rating:
This book is up-to-date and well paced. I recommend it to someone aware of the Java syntax that wants a quick re-cap before getting to the well explained chapters on Classes, Inheritance, Exceptions, I/O, JAR and Java Web Start. On the downside the chapter on collections is a tough read and the last chapter on applets feels like it doesn't belong to the book.

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