Murach's Java Servlets and JSP

Head First Java, 2nd Edition

Beginners Guide

Murach's Beginning Java 2, JDK 5

Format: Paperback
Author: Doug Lowe
ReleaseDate: 15 January, 2005
Publisher: Mike Murach & Associates
Rating:

Good textbook with minor errors and not very consistent structure
Overall book is good although with some errors in text and some of the code is hard to understand without whole program code. I am taking my Begining Java Class now and we use this textbook. My instructor studied on previous edition and said that previous edition was better structured.

Mainframers, this is your book!
Until recently, though, all I have had to show for my efforts is a stack of highly-rated but little-read books on the subject. As a mainframe software engineer with over twenty years in the business, I have for several years now seen the need and have endeavored to learn some Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) language such as C++ or Java. The reason they are little-read is I would get about 4 chapters in to the book, only to get utterly lost and give up, and toss the C++ or Java book onto a stack of similar books in the corner of my home office, fighting the despair that I would ever learn any of this stuff.

Eventually, I got hold of Beginning Java2 (JDK 5) by Lowe, Murach, and Steelman; published by Murach and Associates. As a result of working through this book, I am glad to report that I am finally successfully writing programs using weird and bizarre (to us mainframers) things such as Classes, Objects, Constructors, Methods, Inheritance, and Polymorphism; and I am actually understanding what is going on. Even more shocking, it is fun!

I think the problem with all those other books was that they assumed the reader either knew something about Object Oriented programming, or knew nothing about any kind of programming. However, I think for some of us, when approaching OOP, knowing mainframe programming is worse than knowing nothing. This Java book clearly explains things in ways that we mainframe people can easily latch onto.

If you want to finally, successfully make the jump from legacy work to Object Oriented, this is your book.
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havent had to use it much
. it helps you understand Java a little bit more than a class does.