Rating: 
Summary: Easy to read, helpful Java book
Review: Eckel is a master at getting his point across. Thinking in Java is the perfect book for beginner to intermediate programmers who either know a language and want to learn Java and what it can offer, or those who are just beginning programming and want to start with Java. It's also a helpful reference for syntax and language usage. Eckel outlines all of the major topics (some in very much depth, others a little more superficially) in Java programming such as EJBs, inheritance, threading, network programming, and others. Also included with this book is "Learning C" on CD, which Eckel actually talks readers through and explains step by step the C language. This is a highly recommended book, although one might be inclined not to buy it... :-)
Rating:
Summary: From a Programmer to a Programmer
Review: One of the best books for Java. Bruce Eckel is an excellent author. He introduces concepts, by giving examples. These examples are well structured and shows us the root philosophy behind using a particular concept. If you are a programmer and want to migrate to Java, use this book!!!! It tells every little bitty things about the Java language. The chapter about Java Networking is the best chapter in the whole book.
Rating: 
Summary: Helps teaching Java
Review: I used it to prepare a course on Java. It had just what the students needed. Great organization. Good timing. Rock-solid basis for understanding the language.
Rating:
Summary: Thinking in Java
Review: excellent book available also online!
Rating: 
Summary: Good book, too much reliance on sample code
Review: I liked the book, and Bruce definitely has an excellent & thorough understanding of Java. I especially liked the fact that this book does not fixate on writing Java client apps in Swing or AWT - there are other books that specialize in that. This is all about core Java concepts that apply equally well to server-side, client-side, PDA, etc. My main complaints are 1) he often presents vital concepts in an example only, instead of thoroughly discussing it in addition to presenting an example, and 2) the sample source code gets longer and longer as you go through the book. Bruce almost always presents a complete, working mini-program in his source code, with a main method, utility functions, etc. This is nice because you can easily compile and run the examples, but there are many cases where concise code snippets that focused only on the concept being presented would be easier to understand. An ideal compromise might be code snippets throughout the chapters, with a complete compileable program at the end of each chapter.
Rating:
Summary: excellent way to get up to speed in java
Review: i bought this book and was quite impressed with the way the material was presented. having had some experience with C & C++ programming i was able to move through the book quickly and pick up on the java foundation classes easily. i was so impressed with this book that i ordered 14 more copies to hand out to my department so that they could come up to speed in java. i would have to say that almost all of them felt that it was a good startup text to learn java. after reading this text one can expect to have a decent handle on object oriented programming and start to expand on a decent base of java knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Primer
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone learning the Java language. Bruce has a writing style that makes it easy to understand the points he is making. It is much better then Beginning Java 2 by Horton, Eckel has good examples unlike Horton who likes to get caught up in mathematical concepts instead of programming concepts. I will definitely be going back to this book to use as a reference.
Rating:
Summary: Best Java Book I've Read
Review: I found Thinking in Java to be an extremely readable book. I read the book pretty much cover to cover and by the time I'd finished I found myself quite comfortable with the concepts in Java. A couple of years of programming in it and I've never felt that I was disillusioned by that (as often turns out when you start actually using something that you think you know). Learning the syntax of a language is the easy part -- the hard part is understanding why things are done in certain ways and how to best utilize the language features, and I felt this book did a great job of explaining that. I'm amazed looking through the vastly differing opinions on this book -- so perhaps the best advice is to flip through the pages at a bookstore and see if you like the writing style or not. Or, perhaps look through the table of contents and see if the chapter titles are the types of things you're looking for. My guess is that perhaps this isn't a good book for people who have never programmed before. A few notes from the book's prerequisite section on this: "This book assumes that you have some programming familiarity: you understand that a program is a collection of statements, the idea of a subroutine/function/macro, control statements such as 'if' and looping constructs such as 'while,' etc... As long as you've programmed to the point where you feel comfortable with the basic ideas of programming, you'll be able to work through this book. Of course, the book will be easier for the C programmers and more so for the C++ programmers, but don't count yourself out if you're not experienced with those languages (but come willing to work hard)." (Wouldn't it be nice if amazon could list prerequisite sections for all of their technical books??)
Rating:
Summary: Just as third book
Review: This title was one of recommended for my Java studies and i found a lot of positive response on the net. I am finishing my course very soon and realizing that it was wrong choice, not my style, i found organinization of chapters sometimes disapponting and unconvinient. This book have not been used for studies but Flanagan and Horton, online tutorials. Three stars for inner classes, new AWT model and design patterns.
Rating:
Summary: 2nd Edition is an Effective Learning Tool
Review: This is part of the standard book list that you should adopt in becoming skilled at Java. It's not the only book you'll need in preparing for certification, but the title is done justice by the author. After reading this book and attacking the exercises, you really are capable of thinking in Java terms. As a companion, you might look at Java In A Nutshell by O'Reilly for reference.
| 
