Java Precisely
Java Precisely
By Peter Sestoft
* Publisher: The MIT Press
* Number Of Pages: 128
* Publication Date: 2002-06-14
* Sales Rank: 830728
* ISBN / ASIN: 0262692767
* EAN: 9780262692762
* Binding: Paperback
* Manufacturer: The MIT Press
* Studio: The MIT Press
* Average Rating: 4.5
Book Description:
Java Precisely provides a concise reference for the Java programming language and some of its essential libraries. The book covers Java 2, versions 1.3 and 1.4. It is intended both for students learning Java and for more experienced Java programmers. Though written informally, it describes the language in detail and provides many examples. To improve clarity, most of the general rules appear on left-hand pages with the relevant examples on the opposite right-hand pages.
Book Description
Java Precisely provides a concise reference for the Java programming language and some of its essential libraries. The book covers Java 2, versions 1.3 and 1.4. It is intended both for students learning Java and for more experienced Java programmers. Though written informally, it describes the language in detail and provides many examples. To improve clarity, most of the general rules appear on left-hand pages with the relevant examples on the opposite right-hand pages.
Book Info
Provides a concise reference for the Java programming language and some of its essential libraries. Covers Java 2, versions 1.3 and 1.4. Intended both for students learning Java and for more experienced Java programmers. Softcover.
About the Author
Peter Sestoft is Professor of Information Technology at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University and at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Review:
complete in no more space than necessary=the perfect reference
This is a very small book, but complete. These two characteristics allow you to find very quickly the precise and complete information you are looking for. Nevertheless, the book is not for learning Java from start; instead, it is to be used as reference by people who already has a general knowledge of the language.
I am ordering a new copy because I lost my first one.
Date: 2006-11-05 Rating: 5
Review:Precise and Complete
This book is a quick reference for most questions in Java usage. What I find particularly useful is the section on Java Collection and generics. A great work overall.
Date: 2006-09-08 Rating: 5
Review:If you took the Java Language Specification …
… and boiled it till only the essentials remained, this is what you’d get. There is no other book as concise and yet as complete. The 2nd edition covers Java 1.5 which addresses the concerns of some other reviewers that it might be outdated. Another reviewer compared it to K&R, which is a good comparison. You could very nearly write a Java compiler based on this book. Companion books include the “Java Language Specification” (Gosling, et. al.), and “Java Rules” (Dunn).
Date: 2006-06-11 Rating: 4
Review:slightly outdated Java
Inevitably, the version of Java described in this book, from 2002, is not the present one, which is currently 1.5 and will soon be 1.6. But the base classes in the book are basically the same as in 1.5. So much of the book, if not all of it, still has merit.
It is indeed very concise. Lacks the verbosity and generous diagrams of many Java books. It does not go into UI building to any depth. Rather, it deals with the intrinsic computational and text I/O classes. The book has the flavour of a Fortran or C/C++ text, circa 1980s, before graphics widgets hit the scene. The treatment is slightly more mathematical than most introductory programming books. Aimed at a science or engineering student.
Date: 2005-08-19 Rating: 5
Review:For that Essential Language Tidbit You Need Right Now
Can’t remember (or never knew) whether you use ‘&&’ or ‘&’ for a bitwise ‘and’? Want to use the ’switch’ statement, but haven’t used it in some time (or never learned it)? This is the book that lets you **quickly** check (or learn) an essential Java tidbit.
Most other books on Java are intended to **teach** the clueless, in which case your essential tidbit is lost among all the words required for context-rich explanation. But, you are not clueless. You need something without the fluff. This is the book.
When I was looking for a book for fast look-ups, I tried several including O’Reilly’s Java Language Reference and Gosling et al’s The Java Language Specification. I stopped looking when I found this book. This book is better organized, more understandable, and as complete(for the purpose).
Most surprisingly, the author achieves brevity without ever seeming to be rushed. Somehow he even finds space to include a large number of very helpful examples.