Active Visual J++ (Microsoft Programming Series)

Rating:
Summary: Good book, but with a few "issues"
Review: Even though Java used to figure prominently in Microsoft's favorite technologies, its Visual J++ product is one of the most widely used Java development tools on the market. Scott Robert Ladd's Active Visual J++ is an excellent introduction to Java programming with VJ++ and Microsoft's Internet strategy. The book claims to be intermediate level, but you'd better already know the basics of Java programming before tackling it, or at least have a solid background in C++. The book spends its time explaining how to develop applets and applications, with very little on Java syntax.
Part 1, Object-Oriented Programming, provides an overview of Java and its role for Internet-based and full-blown applications. I liked the overview of Java class design and the comparison between Java and C++. Part 2, Component-Oriented Java, using Java for components, both for Web applications and standalone apps. The author spends a fair bit of time talking about ActiveX and COM (this is a Microsoft Press book, after all), but includes a chapter about JavaBeans and how you can mix and match them with ActiveX components. The last part, Application Java, focuses on creating standalone applications with Java, with discussions of the Abstract Window Toolkit, user-interface design, building and using components, and security issues. Over the course of several chapters, the author develops some simple but complete Java programs with VJ++.
I found the book to be generally well-written with light humor but with an inconsistency that was sometimes distracting. The author excels when describing general concepts but sometimes gets bogged down in detail. The chapter on the AWT, for example, consists mostly of the various classes listing their methods and properties (using Microsoft's terms, not Java's) with a couple of sentences explanation. I think this chapter would be more useful with a broader overview of the AWT serving as an introduction to the following chapters. Several of the diagrams look to have been hastily drawn with a marker then poorly reproduced.
Normally I don't like code listings in books that go on for several pages, but here it works. The examples are short enough to let you grasp how it works but without going on forever. The CD, of course, includes all the code.
But these are minor niggles. If you know either Java or C++ and want to use VJ++ to write anything from simple applets to full applications, this is a very good place to start.

Rating:
Summary: Not up to MSPress' usually high standard
Review: I found this book to be good in the sense that it focuses on JAVA and it's interfacing with COM. The JAVABEANS section was also good.

The problem I have with the book is that it is titled "Active Visual J++." It's even published by Microsoft Press, so why doesn't it utilize the features of Developer's Studio?

Good for an intro, but definately not a book to have to learn the scoop on the "visual" side of things.

Rating:
Summary: Not up to MSPress' usually high standard
Review: I like MSPress books, usually. I did not like this book. The book is thin and seemed padded (lots of empty separator pages, long boring, obscure code samples) - not much content. The book is seemed like a book about Java with some coverage of VJ++, rather than vice-versa.

How many more books have to go over the same old java vs. C++ stuff, OOD, and the Internet (hello, this book is for "intermediate programmers who know the basics of Java" - they already know about the INternet). Perhaps these sections should be replaced with real content. THis is not a Java Primer - it lacks the content required for that, yet it covers ground that would be covered in any Java Primer (which would be a prerequisite to this book). No coverage of database access, e.g. ADO...yet surely Active suggests dynamic websites, which are often/primarily used to provide database access.

The examples were...poorly chosen IMHO. ..and the paper seemed cheap and yellowed! (How about a webpage accessing a database as a more relevant example?)

Rating:
Summary: too bad there isn't a no star review
Review: Microsoft's blatant ripoff of Java should never have left Redmond. Its a shame because they can't really think up original ideas just rip good ones off. Don't buy this book!!!

Rating:
Summary: A book that mathematicians will love!
Review: The Microsoft Press book, "Active Visual J++" is a really good book. - it 's just not the book I was looking for. As a product of Microsoft Press, you might think that it would be an intense and partisan guide to the Microsoft view of the Java world. You might be dead wrong, too. In fact, this is really a book of innovative Java code to implement numerical analysis and cellular automata. Everybody who is into that science will think it's great - all three of them. Too bad that thousands of people looking for instruction on J++ will buy it instead. I found a clue about why in the bibliography (pp. 320-321). The author's previous books are heavy duty numerical analysis texts. I found myself wondering if the only reason this book was titled "Visual J++" is that a book titled "Simulations and Cellular Automata" just wouldn't sell as many copies. There is nothing on the book jacket to suggest who this book is for, but if you don't have a pretty good knowledge of C or Java syntax already, it's not for you! "Active Visual J++" starts off with a bang! Without even a preface or introduction, the author throws a sophisticated 6½ page Java applet at you right there on page 10. It's definitely a "throw the baby in the ocean to see if he can swim" approach." Active Visual J++" might be a good reference for C++ programmers, too. In addition to frequent explanations about how various code examples are the same or different from C++ in the early chapters, Chapter 3 is totally devoted to this single topic. Chapter 3 is a great example of another thing about "Active Visual J++". The author filled a lot of the book's pages with very sparsely documented code rather than explanations of what that code is supposed to help you understand. A rough calculation revealed that only 35 percent of the Chapter 3 is actual writing. The rest of the entire chapter is uncommented source code. The whole book is like that. It's sometimes said that many programmers are really frustrated writers trapped in a programming job. The author of "Active Visual J++" seems to be a frustrated programmer trying to write.