Rating: 
Summary: Good Book for Certification
Review: This is a very good book on Certification. I read both complete guide to Java certification and this one. This book offers review questions at every 10 to 15 pages and Programming exercises at the end of the chapter. Even if you are not taking exam, this book will help you to learn a lot about java programming. I would certainly recommand this book. It also gives information on swing which is a plus(even though it is not required for the exam) Overall I gave 5 stars for its content and presentation and also good Mock exams. There is a supporting web site from where you can download mock exams and errata.
Rating:
Summary: If you seriously read this book , you will pass the exam
Review: This books covers everything you need for passing Sun Certified Java Programmers Exam.The Explanations are so clear that even a person with no previous programming experience can easily understand the complications of the Java language .Very difficult topics like inner classes, Threads, I/O are explained in a very understandable and intresting way.That book will, for sure increase your interest in the language.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely thorough
Review: This book is full of information and covers each topic in great detail. For the novice, I suggest that one use this book along with Bruce Eckel's Thinking in Java. Both combined make an excellent resource for the certification exam.Pros: 1> The coverage on language fundamentals, inner classes, overriding, overloading, and event delegation model is excellent. The explanation is clear and concise. There is a steady flow from one concept to another. 2> The best part of the book is that it has review questions after every 10 pages or so. The questions are very tough but then they really test you for thorough understanding of the concepts. 3> The book with its thorough analysis of the Java language can be daunting at times (enough to give up the exam preparation). This is both a pro as well as a con of the book. Cons: 1> AWT and I/O is better covered in Roberts' Complete Guide to Java 2 certification book. 2> Additional topics on Swing and Javadoc are not part of the exam curriculum. Suggestions: 1> The mock exam in the book is much tougher than the real exam. 2> Take all the mock exams on the internet. See the site www.jchq.net
Rating: 
Summary: satisfactory for J2CP
Review: The organization of the book is good. But it cover some chapters that are not included in the exam (like swing etc). You can use this book both for the exam preparation and as an introduction to the java programming language. The weak point of the book is that it doesnt have enough test questions. There is a sample test at the end of the book but it has some errors. But I still highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, more than a book for exam
Review: This book is an excellent guide for Java Certification, but more than that. This book covers every topic included in the Exam Objectives and a lot of Supplementary Objectives. At the beginning of each chapter, it states these two kinds of objectives clearly. At the end of each chapter, this book provides chapter summary, which helps reader to memorize the chapter. Also this book provides programming exercises and solutions, which are very interesting and useful in real programming. This book provides chapters for swing and javadoc, which contains useful information out of Exam Objectives. Some topics are very well explained, such as: 1.Operator and assignment a) difference between >> and >>>, b) Automatic narrowing. It occurs for integral types for initialization and arithmetic extended assignment. Example: short s=12; is legal short s=12; int i=3; s += i; is legal But s = s+i; is not. 2.Inners classes, Four types of inner classes and interfaces clearly explained. 3. Thread, wait, notify, notifyall, sleep, yield clear explained. 4. Object lifetime (finalization, initialization and garbage collection), variable initializer, static initializer, instance initializer, ¡ finalize method, System.gc well explained. 5. Event handling, High level and low-level event processing, semantic event and low-level events¡. This book takes you much more time to read than Java 2 (Exam Cram) by Bill Brogden, William B. Brogden, but it is much more complete and clearer. If you want to really master java fundamental, this book is worth reading. It is more than a book just for exam: those who already have SCJP can also learn a lot from this book. Hope to see A Developer's Guide to Java Certification for java developer exam in the future, which will contain JDBC, Swing, and more.
Rating:
Summary: from an experienced Java programmer
Review: While this book is primarily intended to prepare the reader for Java certification, it's also very useful as an introduction to areas of Java that the programmer has not yet encountered. This is a big help in a subject as large as Java. This book included the shortest and clearest presentation I have found of the use of models in Swing, for example. The authors have the knack of presenting concepts clearly with informative examples that get right to what the reader wants to know.
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Summary: Simply the *BEST*
Review: This book is simply awesome, I have read more than 10 of the best java books and that was clearly the one with the best content, depth, organization and is written in such an exciting way that makes you really enjoy reading and understanding what's behind the scenes. I think it is the best core Java book written so far, not just for exam certification but generally for learning the language. I really hope Khaled & Ralf write more Java books addressing more advanced Java topics and Design Patterns. I recommend Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckle, it's also an excellent book that I enjoyed.
Rating:
Summary: Very Solid Book
Review: Of all the books I've read on Java Certification this is the one I'd recommend. It's more of a textbook than most and gives you a good overview of the language from the ground up.
Rating:
Summary: From a non-professional programmer's standpoint
Review: This review is written for readers who are in similar situation as mine. My background: -My experience with Java was minimal (2 University classes). -I didn't have work experience in Java. My thoughts on the book: This book covers everything you need for the Java 2 exam. It even covers topics such as Javadoc and Swing. You are told if a chapter is related to the exam objectives or not - the author categorizes the chapters' objectives (and sub objectives) into Main or Supplemental ones so you can skip a chapter (or a section) that you don't need for certification purposes. The wording is concise and straight to the point. The terminologies and notations are based on the standards used in the industry (UML is used extensively in this book). The chapters are not closely tied so you can jump from one to another pretty easily. The concepts are defined and explained very thoroughly (important for certification) - this is the strongest selling point of this book. The practice questions and the mock exams are very good (make sure you do the written mock exam at the back of the book) and they expose one's weaknesses in the language quite effectively. The book's website has corrections and a mock exam engine. This book helps you master the language concepts in addition to passing the exam. My preparation: I took 3 months of 4-5 hour nights to study the material in this book. I have another book but that book looks like kindergarden material once you've read Khalid's book. I did more than 15 mock exams and experimented with codes to clear my doubts. My result: Passed with 90% Hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: Yet another praise for a great work
Review: To my opinion, this is one of the best books on the subject from those that are on the market today. I used this book to prepare for Sun's 310-025 certification test and scored 97%. This book accounted for at least 85% of that score, while the rest was due to online tests, practice and some other books. But, this book not only prepares for the test, it actually gives some real knowledge and understnding of Java, which will not be useless in the real world. Good points (of this book): * extremely thorough and accurate coverage of ALL test objectives; the book goes even beyond and covers some essential areas which are not on the test yet, but could be there in the nearset future (such as Swing) * Review questions at the end of each chapter * At the end of almost every chapter there is a practice programming assignment; first, I was too lazy to do them, but then I realized that there is only one or two assignments at the end of each chapter, so it's not really intimidating and actually possible to do them quickly w/o wasting too much time. * The test in the end of book is very hard; I was able to score only 81% there (with Java 2 Exam Cram practice test, which I was also studying, I scored 91%, and on real exam I got 97%) Not-so-good points: * There are some minor mistakes (like in any other book out there) in the text and even before you start studying this book, you should download latest errata, go through the book with pencil and correct all of them. The good part is that errata is fairly accurate and frequently updated. Conclusion: This is a fundamental work which should not be overlooked; probably, the best to date. ================= BTW, here is the recources, I was using to prepare for this exam: * This book * Bill Brodgen's "Java 2 Exam Cram" * David Flanagans's "Java in a Nutshell" * A dozen of online tests (most notably, Java Ranch's list of links to java certification recources)
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