For non-programmers looking to make the transition to becoming a programmer, this book is a fine place to start. It works well as both a self-study text, and as a classroom textbook.
There aren't a lot of Java books out there written to teach the language to non-programmers. In many ways the Java language was created for C programmers, and most of the available books are written for the same audience--programmers familiar with C or C++. To my knowledge, there are presently only two books that are generally available intended to teach Java to the non-programmer. Edit: since this was written, several more books of this type have come out. The situation is far better now!
The First Step is Always the Hardest
As appropriate for a beginner's book, this book starts with a fair amount of detail on how to get set up and get started. It's challenging to strike the right balance with this material, some beginners get up and running with a minimum of effort, others run into trouble from unanticipated sources--leaving them in a position where almost no amount of information seems like enough. I think this book strikes a good balance, referring to external sources for supplemental material. Best of all, it maintains a platform-agnostic approach. You would think this is a given in a book teaching a platform-agnostic language, but it's not.
As appropriate for a beginner's book, the book teaches the principles of programming first, and Java second. The exercises of the seven chapters take the form of console, or command-line applications. Graphical applications are introduced about 2/3rds of the way through the book, in chapter 8. Most of the examples take the form of simple games.
The book teaches the basics of programming--variables, operators, flow control and such--in the first four chapters. The pacing of this material is very good, it teaches enough to not only cover the absolute core but some of the extra twists, and moves through it before it becomes tedious. Chapters five through seven get into object-oriented programming. The placement of this material in the book is great, going any further without introducing the material would be a bad idea, and any sooner would have been confusing to non-programmers.
Comprehensive Coverage
Overall the book covers a lot of ground. Someone working through this book from beginning to end is going to come out with a strong knowledge of a lot of Java. Each chapter ends with a number of exercises, which are essential additions to the examples in the text for the student to have the ability to really synthesize the information and go from program copier to a writing their own programs.
The breadth of the coverage is one of the books' strongest points. The material is well-paced, and the many complete examples of working programs are a huge advantage over the snippets that many books rely on. Exception handling, class creation, and many other subjects are covered. About the only thing I could ask for that isn't here is a brief introduction to threads, but I wouldn't even consider the idea of adding this if the book wasn't already so comprehensive.
Errata
One of the problems this book has is the typos in the program text. They are not numerous, and often even beginners can see the flaws once they know to look for them. They aren't common, only a few of the programs have errors in them. But they can be frustrating when they occur for those who are learning on their own.
Reaching Too Far?
Some of the examples try to do a bit too much, too. Rather than concentrating on one key point they add several new items at once. The centerpiece of each program is always the subject of the lesson, but additional little items get slipped into the examples. It's also worth noting that the examples that use special characters don't account for the configuration of the Terminal in Mac OS X that interferes with using these characters in the same fashion as on other platforms.
The later examples in the book also tend to get quite long. This results in a lot of typing by the beginner before they see any results. Likewise, this ties into the problem with many exercises not concentrating on the specific subject of the lesson. Particularly when graphics are introduced, I would have liked to see very short, focused examples that do only the absolute minimum to open a window and do some drawing, then add other interaction (such as the mouse, keyboard shortcuts, widgets, etc.) piecemeal. I ended up using my own example programs in my class to introduce graphics, and it went considerably smoother than I have had it go with students that followed the book alone. (I will be posting these examples in this blog when I get into graphics.) I would also like to have seen graphics introduced earlier in the book, allowing more examples to use graphics. This would also start the student making what look like "real applications" in the modern environment earlier in the learning process.
Summary
I feel this is a great book for a new programmer. Further, Java is a great language for a new programmer. Groovy may be better, but the resources available for a beginning programmer are still slim at this point, and I haven't actually had the experience of teaching it to beginners yet. Edit: There are many other languages that run on the JVM now, the others that can access the graphics and sound facilities natively (rather than through special calls to access Java syntax) would also be good candidates.
Final Grade: 85%, B
Pros:
Good material and pacing, (mostly) fun examples.
Covers lots of Java, and does it well.
Platform-agnostic.
Cons:
Typos in examples.
Discussion gets dry in places.
Examples in the later parts of the book are long and do too much at once.
Recommendation:
Buy if you're a non-programmer looking to become a programmer and want to do it with just one book. If you're willing to work out of more than one book, you may also want to consider Beginning Programming with Java for Dummies by Brad Burd (I'll be posting a mini-review of this book soon.) This also makes a good textbook for teachers looking for a class textbook thanks to the organization of the book and the chapter exercises.
Posts
