New and classic books for Java programmers of all skill levels

by Ođuzhan Kocatepe

Programmers everywhere are flocking to Java, but they're coming from a variety of backgrounds. Some have years of experience in high-level languages while others are programming novices. Some are already familiar with object-oriented languages, while others are making the transition to objects. All of the following books aim to teach Java programming, but each is targeted to a different audience.

A solid update to a long-time bestseller, Java in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition provides an introduction and a handy desk reference to the Java 1.1 application programming interface (API). The concentration is on new language features including changes to the object model, the new release of the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT), Inner Classes, Java Beans, and Java ARchive (JAR) files. C and C++ programmers will also appreciate the quick-start tutorial.

Intelligent Java Programming for the Internet and Intranets is an intriguing new book that teaches you to use Java as a tool for implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in distributed applications. The author provides an introductory explanation of AI concepts, takes you through the development of basic toolkit libraries, and shows you how to use them to implement a variety of interesting examples.

Consider using Java ORBs (Object Request Broker) for programming large distributed systems, say Vogel and Duddy in their book, Java Programming with CORBA. This volume gives an overview of Java and CORBA and demonstrates how to build powerful CORBA-based applications using Java ORBs.

Intended for complete beginners, Java Now!, by Kris Jamsa, is a strong introductory book that teaches general programming concepts while using Java to get to the specifics. It begins with the basics of setting up the development environment and ultimately moves on to fairly advanced topics.

Just Java , by Peter Van Der Linden, takes material that can be quite dry and livens it up. The book is designed for people who can already program, but want to learn about Java and object-oriented languages.

Core Java is a great way for serious programmers to get up to speed quickly with all aspects of the language. The book's topics include objects, the AWT, user interface (UI) design, applet creation, I/O, multithreading, network programming, database connectivity, and remote method invocation.

Java How-To: The Definitive Java Problem Solver, by M. Siddalingaiah and S. Lockwood, targets professionals who will use Java in a production environment and provides examples that focus on real-world problems. The authors assume that you're coming to Java with a solid background in a programming language such as C/C++ or Visual Basic.

Web Programming with Java, by Michael Girdley and Kathryn Jones, is appropriately named and is geared specifically for Java applet programming on the Web. The book's topics cover everything from language fundamentals to advanced network programming techniques.

The Java Class Libraries: An Annotated Reference, is definitely not a tutorial, but, once you've finished reading the tutorials mentioned above, you can use this book to answer all your questions about the rich Java class libraries.

Ođuzhan Kocatepe is a veteran JAVA programmer.

Titles Mentioned Above
Java in a Nutshell : A Desktop Quick Reference (The Java Series) Our Price: $15.96 You Save: $3.99 (20%)
Intelligent Java Applications for the Internet and Intranets Our Price: $35.96 You Save: $8.99 (20%)
Java Programming With Corba
Java Now : The Easiest Way to Learn Java in the Least Amount of Time Our Price: $13.56 You Save: $3.39 (20%)

Core Java 1.1 : Fundamentals (Sunsoft Press Java Series) Our Price: $27.97 You Save: $11.98 (30%)
Java How-To : The Definitive Java Problem-Solver Our Price: $31.99 You Save: $8.00 (20%)
Web Programming With Java Our Price: $31.99 You Save: $8.00 (20%)
The Java Class Libraries : An Annotated Reference (Java Series) Our Price: $35.67 You Save: $15.28 (30%)