A Good Book for Beginners?

[W. Mitchell]

I was told that Beginning Java 2.0 by Ivor Horton is a good book for people like me who are just beginning to learn Java.

What do you think about the book and/or do you have a better book to suggest?

Thanks,
William

[cfmoxey]

Okay, I hate to sound like Bill C here, but what do you mean by beginner? If you mean someone who has not programmed in C++, Smalltalk, OO-whatever, then yes, it is a very good, very thorough book. Unfortunately, he takes a long time to get to some things. If you know C++, go with some of the Sun tutorial-like books. In fact, you can download some pretty good tutorials from the Sun website.

If you want a book filled with well-explained code, take a look at Jackson & McClellan's *Java by Example* 3/e, Prentice Hall.

A last comment, if I may, about book selection. Like beauty, if it isn't terribly flawed in the presentation, it is in the eyes of the beholder. If you have the opportunity, go to a good bookstore--real, not virtual--and browse the Java books, God knows there are enough of them. Find the one, or two, maybe even three, that you like.



[Edited by cfmoxey on 07-11-2000 at 08:14 AM]

[ashu1]

Hey you could try JAVA , the beginner's guide, by Patrick Naughton and Herbert Schildt. Its pretty good.

[ttingen]

http://www.informIT.com has some free online Java books that you could browse.

Signing up is free and then click on Free Library.

[parksie]

java.sun.com has loads of information and tutorials: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial

[hypnos]

Well whatever you do, don't buy "Sams Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours", it's absolute rubbish! I think you should take parksie's advice and download a few tutorials from Sun's (http://java.sun.com) site.

[parksie]

Hehehe. Never knew anyone would stick up for me :). Although, once you're past the V(ery) Basics (:))...take a long look at "Java 1.2 Unleashed". It shows all sorts of groovy things, like Swing, CORBA, RMI, and connecting to databases. I had Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 days and that got me sorted.

[noone]

I didn't think Sams Teach Yourself Java in 24 Hours was too bad of a book, I did read it free online though. I liked the way it was written and served as a good beginners introduction to Java for me. Of course it doesnt go very in depth or cover some of the "cooler" stuff. Thinking In Java is a good book for covering some more advanced topics and its also online free.

[cgl88]

I have the latest book by Horton..Beginning Java 2 with JDK 1.2.

Before buying it a good friend recommended it. I then went to http://www.amazon.com and read the reviews.

Overall I find the book very good. But I have C++ background which makes learning it alot easier.