This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Raves for the First Edition! “I sure wish I had this book ten years ago. Some might think that I don’t need any Java books, but I need this one.” –James Gosling, fellow and vice president, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “An excellent book, crammed with good advice on using the Java programming language and object-oriented programming in general.” –Gilad Bracha, coauthor of The Java™ Language Specification, Third Edition “10/10–anyone aspiring to write good Java code that others will appreciate reading and maintaining should be required to own a copy of this book. This is one of those rare books where the information won’t become obsolete with subsequent releases of the JDK library.”
–Peter Tran, bartender, JavaRanch.com “The best Java book yet written.... Really great; very readable and eminently useful. I can’t say enough good things about this book. At JavaOne 2001, James Gosling said, ‘Go buy this book!’ I’m glad I did, and I couldn’t agree more.”
–Keith Edwards, senior member of research staff, Computer Science Lab at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and author of Core JINI (Prentice Hall, 2000) “This is a truly excellent book done by the guy who designed several of the better recent Java platform APIs (including the Collections API).”
–James Clark, technical lead of the XML Working Group during the creation of the XML 1.0 Recommendation, editor of the XPath and XSLT Recommendations “Great content. Analogous to Scott Meyers’ classic Effective C++. If you know the basics of Java, this has to be your next book.”
–Gary K. Evans, OO mentor and consultant, Evanetics, Inc “Josh Bloch gives great insight into best practices that really can only be discovered after years of study and experience.”
–Mark Mascolino, software engineer “This is a superb book. It clearly covers many of the language/platform subtleties and trickery you need to learn to become a real Java master.”
–Victor Wiewiorowski, vice president development and code quality manager, ValueCommerce Co., Tokyo, Japan “I like books that under-promise in their titles and over-deliver in their contents. This book has 57 items of programming advice that are well chosen. Each item reveals a clear, deep grasp of the language. Each one illustrates in simple, practical terms the limits of programming on intuition alone, or taking the most direct path to a solution without fully understanding what the language offers.” –Michael Ernest, Inkling Research, Inc. “I don’t find many programming books that make me want to read every page–this is one of them.”
–Matt Tucker, chief technical officer, Jive Software “Great how-to resource for the experienced developer.”
–John Zukowski, author of numerous Java technology books “I picked this book up two weeks ago and can safely say I learned more about the Java language in three days of reading than I did in three months of study! An excellent book and a welcome addition to my Java library.”
–Jane Griscti, I/T advisory specialist

Are you looking for a deeper understanding of the Java™ programming language so that you can write code that is clearer, more correct, more robust, and more reusable? Look no further! Effective Java™, Second Edition, brings together seventy-eight indispensable programmer’s rules of thumb: working, best-practice solutions for the programming challenges you encounter every day.

This highly anticipated new edition of the classic, Jolt Award-winning work has been thoroughly updated to cover Java SE 5 and Java SE 6 features introduced since the first edition. Bloch explores new design patterns and language idioms, showing you how to make the most of features ranging from generics to enums, annotations to autoboxing.

Each chapter in the book consists of several “items” presented in the form of a short, standalone essay that provides specific advice, insight into Java platform subtleties, and outstanding code examples. The comprehensive descriptions and explanations for each item illuminate what to do, what not to do, and why.

Highlights include:

• New coverage of generics, enums, annotations, autoboxing, the for-each loop, varargs, concurrency utilities, and much more

• Updated techniques and best practices on classic topics, including objects, classes, libraries, methods, and serialization

• How to avoid the traps and pitfalls of commonly misunderstood subtleties of the language

• Focus on the language and its most fundamental libraries: java.lang, java.util, and, to a lesser extent, java.util.concurrent and java.io

Simply put, Effective Java™, Second Edition, presents the most practical, authoritative guidelines available for writing efficient, well-designed programs.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 36 Ratings

Fantastic book if you're an experienced C# and want to do the switch! - 2009-06-25
Reviewer Rating:
I was an experienced C# programmer wanting to do the switch over to Java. The "Hello World" java books were a waste of time. I can easily figure out the obvious C# --> Java "translation" on my own! But I was really looking for a book that was written at a level that would teach me useful differences quickly. This book is worth gold!

Everything you probably never thought about - 2009-06-23
Reviewer Rating:
I must admit, I already considered myself a Java expert before reading this book - if it hadn't come so highly recommended, I probably never would have picked it up. Although I was skeptical that this Joshua Bloch fellow would be able to tell me anything I didn't already know, it turns out that you _can_ teach an old dog new tricks. This book is written for somebody with likely a few years experience as a professional Java programmer who's ready to advance to the next level.

This isn't about creating functional software - instead, he focuses on the things that are easy to overlook when you're only concern is getting it up and running and out the door. The book is organized as 78 suggestions which, if overlooked, will come back to haunt you in subtle ways long after you thought you were finished.

If you're a professional Java programmer, you need to take the time to read this book.

If you are a Java programmer, this book is a must have! - 2009-05-14
Reviewer Rating:
If you are a Java programmer and you want a guide to writing high quality code, this book is a must!

I read the 1st edition as well and this 2nd edition provided the same effective techniques on using the core libraries. The most useful section for me was the section on generics. Specifically this book clarified when to use the wildcard types, subtyping rules for generics and how to localize the use of the SuppressWarnings("unchecked") annotation appropriately in combination with generics.

Awesome Reference for my Java Library - 2009-09-10
Reviewer Rating:
This book is loaded with best practices for the seasoned Java programmer. Every Java developer should keep this book in their book bag. This book provides advice on many Java pitfalls that are often overlooked. The book has been updated with recommendations on many of the new features included in Java 5 & 6 that are particularly useful.

Howsome - 2009-06-27
Reviewer Rating:
Every Java developer who is concerned by the design and performaces of their application should have this book.
it really is the Java Holy Bible

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