Rating: 
Summary: Dull but functional
Review: A dull book for a dull language. It's hard to make a language like Java exciting, and the authors of this book didn't try. Which means it's blessedly free of the tiresome advocacy found in other Java intros. This is a straightforward, workmanlike introduction to the language.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book for ABSOLUTE beginners
Review: I have bought about $500 worth of Java programming books in the last 6 months. I have some programming background and found this to be the absolute BEST BET for anyone wanting to know the RULES OF THE GAME. It is the Hoyle of Java. My recommended 1st book.
Rating:
Summary: Great book on learning java
Review: Great intro to java. If you read the book carefully and do the programming tasks, you will get a great understanding of java. If you have a computer science background, understand oo and want to learn java, get this book.
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Summary: Excellent conceptual overview of Java
Review: This book provides an excellent overview of the motivation behind Java as a language. This is NOT a tutorial, nor light reading for the inexperienced programmer. However, if you are migrating from another language or want to become a proficient Java programmer, then this is the book for you.This book is not a language reference. Syntax and semantics are loosely defined, with much more emphasis placed on how specific constructs and library features fit into the greater "Java philosophy". The authors of this book have obviously divided their work by chapters, since each chapter varies in quality, phrasing, grammar and even spelling quality. I find these errors annoying, but they don't get in the way of the information flow. The chapters are generally well-written, if a little long and tiresome in its details (see the chapter on nested and inner classes). But perplexingly, the chapters on thread synchronization and object serialization give scant details of the "gotchas" associated with those topics. Be advised that this book does not cover the Java library in great detail, nor does it deal with any platform-specific issues. This is a book that deserves a place on the bookshelf of any serious Java developer.
Rating: 
Summary: boring
Review: First, disclosure: I'm truly a nobody as Java programmers go. I'm one of those accidental programmers who started learning Perl one day a few years ago, in order to do some CGI programming. But I have been studying Java in a course and have bought a couple books including this one. I've studied and used Perl, PHP, JavaScript, a little Python, and own plenty of computer books, especially O'Reilly titles. Normally I don't dare bash books whose authors are a 9.9 on a knowledge scale of 1 to 10, when I'm about a 1.7. But in this case I make an exception because the way this book is written is mind-numbing, turgid, impenetrable, and boring. They've taken an inherently fascinating subject and made it dull -- kind of like taking perfectly good pizza and dumping salt all over it. Books about computer programming languages should have at least few good laughs in them, and be interesting enough to keep you up at night rather than make you nod off. Perhaps if you're a genius and/or already very well versed in Java, you'll enjoy it and find it useful. Otherwise, go for Just Java 2.
Rating: 
Summary: Language creators are not always the best teachers
Review: It's now become a rule that creators of every language have to write a book called 'The XYZ Programming Language'. The trend was started (unwittingly) by K&R. It's a pity that the authors who followed their path had none of their writing skill or the brevity of 'The C Programming Language'. Worse, people who have read and enjoyed K&R's writing, expect the same level of writing skill from the next generation. There are plenty of good Java books out there. Do a good market survey. You don't need this book to learn (or to be an expert in) Java.
Rating:
Summary: Indispensable, and excellent in every way
Review: In an earlier review, I recommended this as a reference, and suggested using the Core Java books as a tutorial. I would like to expand on that earlier review now. I got my feet wet and did a lot of Java coding with what I picked up from the other books, and now I find myself with a free week or so to learn more about Java, and much to my surprise I discover that this book is probably one of the best self-instruction books I have ever seen. I would single out the exercises as excellently conceived. My first reaction was "Oh, those exercises are childishly easy." Wrong! Work your way through this book slowly and carefully, and do all the exercises, and you will learn just about everything there is to know about Java (the language, not Java the libraries and the zillion APIs). A particular excellence of the exercises is that the instructions are very short, but frequently following these instructions turns up unexpected complications which just further reinforce the reading matter in the text. This may be the best programming book ever written. Highly recommended!
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Summary: The Java book for professional programmers
Review: It's interesting to read how other reviewers either love or hate this book. The reactions must depend on your background. If you have a computer science degree and are a professional programmer, you'll love this book. It's concise and thorough and clearly explains the motivation behind each feature of the language. Far superior to the other Java language books that I've seen.
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Summary: A Must For The Serious Java Programmer
Review: This book focuses on the Java Language, not Java the Technology. If you want to REALLY learn the *language*, this is the book. You will learn all the rules of the game. This is the definitive book on Java the language, as its co-authored by its creator. If you want to learn about technologies using Java such as servlets, jdbc, etc. then buy a book on a specific Java Technology topic. If you cannot correctly answer the question: "How does Java pass objects (value, reference, etc.)?" Then, you really need to humble yourself and read this book. Coming from a C++ background, I programmed in Java for years, and was amazed at how much of the language I never knew.
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Summary: Concise semantics, but very conceptual
Review: As an experienced C++ programmer, I'm happy I picked up this book for the Java language semantics (the syntax and keywords and stuff). It has proved very useful for translating what I know how to do in C++ to Java, but the wording is often difficult to understand. Whereas books that taught me how to do things in C++ were written for an audience migrating from a top-down, procedural coding style (aka Pascal or C), - logically wrapping functions and variables together into C++ classes - this book teaches one how to design from a purely object-oriented approach. In other words, a book on OO design is almost required reading in order to understand this. To the author's credit, he is very good at describing how to tie everything together semantically given the incredible flexibility of the Java language. I had to look to examples outside of this book for the fundamental class design of a simple GUI. That's not that bad really, as the online Java Tutorial complements this book very well with the old AWT and the new SWING trails. All in all, very comprehensive! Doesn't have much detail on the AWT or SWING Java packages and won't teach you how to design a simple GUI application. Otherwise, excellent.
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