Review of ‘Java Cookbook’

TBR writes “Programmers cookbooks are a great idea. Not only do they provide re-usable chunks of code – from interesting snippets to complete packages and programs – but they are also a great educational resource for those developers who have mastered the basics of syntax and want to progress beyond beginner level. For the jobbing programmer cookbooks can be a fantastic resource.

Ian Darwin’s ‘Java Cookbook’ is no exception. Coming in at a hefty 800 pages, this is a book that helps the reader cut to the chase quickly and effectively. Covering a wide range of topics, from database access to graphics, from client-side to server-side, from internationalisation to performance optimisation. The 26 chapters really do provide solid coverage of most areas of Java development.

Tricky areas, such as printing or programming serial and parallel ports are well-covered. Introductory material is kept to a minimum, there’s an opening chapter that reprises some of the mechanics of compiling, running and debugging programs but even so this is definitely not a beginner’s book.

This new edition of the book includes coverage of Tiger (Java 1.5 or J2SE 5.0 or whatever name finally sticks). The whole of chapter 8, for example, looks specifically at new language features, including generics, foreach, autoboxing and so on. There’s coverage in other chapters too, but there’s also a lot of pre-Tiger code on display.

Read the rest of the review at TechBookReport“