Rating: 
Summary: It is better than taking an official course.
Review: I am moving from Perl to Java and find this book extremely easy to follow. Examples presented are useful and effective. Ivor Horton has successfully delivered his classroom to us in this book through his humble style of teaching. I wishes that he will continue to write upper level Java books related to Java Networking, JDBC, C and C++ data structures, and algorithms in Java and C. Among most of the the introductory books that he has offerred, the idea of linked list and double linked list is provided. This is especially true to his books in C, C++, and Visual C++ series. He can develop in these topics further by displaying how to utilize them in terms of applying them to various C and Java algorithms.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding beginner's level resource
Review: I have beginning level experience in Pascal, QBasic, Visual Basic, and C, but don't know the first thing about Java. Yet after starting Ivor Horton's book, Beginning Java 2, in chapter -18-, I was able to get a JDBC (Java database connectivity) connection with a GUI interface up and running in one evening. I had scoured numerous other books and online tutorials looking for the information to no avail, but found EVERYTHING I needed in Beginning Java 2. Now I am looking at previous chapters to learn other aspects of the language. This is the -only- Java book I have ever picked up that I liked and was eager to use.
Rating:
Summary: Newbie learning
Review: I'm probably being a bit premature in writing this review, but I must say I think this book is great. I have no C or C++ background yet am able to follow this book. I'm only into the 5th chapter but am amazed it how good this book is. I took a whole online course on ZDU (smart planet) in Java and the course was just HORRIBLE. I've learned more in the first few chapters of this book than that whole course was supposed to teach me. For once I'm reading a book on Java that does not have me completely lost.
Rating: 
Summary: easy to learn and use book for java
Review: It is very basic fast learning book to learn jav
Rating: 
Summary: Too content dependant in the later chapters
Review: If you are new to Java you will pick up the concepts very well with this book. The problem is, as the chapters move along, they start to build on the previous chapters. It gets to the point where there isn't a single example that doesn't build on a previous example.As a consultant, I really don't have time to read (and digest) five chapters worth of stuff I don't want to do just so that I can understand the example. For example, I'm currently in the process of writing a applet that needs functionality to handle the mouse. The problem is the example shown is dependant on code from a couple of CHAPTERS back! He'll usually say "you can add functionality to the drawing program by..." and he'll add the example that I was looking at. Then he'll say, "and everything else remains the same". He uses variables and methods that I've never seen before (like the "contained" method). So I go back to the last set of code, which basically says the same thing (go back again). Basically, his project started many chapters back. Having a project in the book is good. It shows you how all of the language functionality can be combined into a real world project. So if you read the book from cover to cover, great. However, if you just need one concept to get a project done (especially with the advanced topics) you will run into problems. He should have code snippets that work independently of the "real-world" project. That would definitely push the book to five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for beginners.
Review: the previous code snippet should read: System.out.println("Remove Ivor's mug.");
Rating:
Summary: Excellent foundation in the language, jdbc a plus.
Review: Ivor does a great job building the foundation. A good book for someone without object programming experience, like myself. JDBC was covered well, and this was very helpful to me. Swing is introduced and explained, allowing the reader to understand the API docs at Suns website. One thing that was missing was invokeLater and invokeAndWait in his thread chapter.
Rating:
Summary: The War and Peace of JAVA programming
Review: I think I would have liked this book a lot better if they removed all instances of Ivor Hortens mug from the covers. Ivor, this is for you: System.out.println('remove ivors mug');
Rating:
Summary: Good beginner book if you've never programmed
Review: I liked the book but it included little swing and event handling information. The chapters on connections using java left a lot to be desired. This book walks you through the learning to program but it doesn't tie everything together. A perfect example of a book that does is the Active Server Pages 2.0 Pro book by wrox. It has great examples and ways to implement the skills you are trying to acquire. Another downside is the chapters are too dependent on each other. The areas can be explained seperately usually with less confusion. However, for all my complaints this book is very good for a beginning programmer and I would recommend it. Just be prepared to buy more books on Swing, servlets and a programming reference.
Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: As an absolute beginner, I was amazed at how pickly I could pick up basic code, good to see if Java really is for you. Only wish there were answers at end of each chapter.
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