Rating: 
Summary: Just right for the Programmer's Exam...
Review:
I used this book as my primary study guide for the Programmer Exam and it definitely helped me passing with high score.
This book is just right for this exam and covers all the objectives very well. I would certainly recommend anybody who is planning to prepare for the exam to read this book. Even experienced Java Developers can gain much of the knowledge of Java Language Fundamentals by reading this book.
However, based on my experience with the exam questions, I believe, this book is somewhat light on topics like Garbage Collection and Collections. If you aim to pass with high scores, you need to put more stress on these two topics and hence need to supplement this book with additional resources/tutorials freely available on the Internet. Otherwise, this is just right for the exam.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Review, Easy to Understand, Missing 1.4 Objectives
Review: Having recently passed the new Programmer 1.4 Exam, I found this book does a very good job of explaining all the basics need for certification. Each chapter is devoted to a different topic and has 10 review questions at the end to reinforce chapter topics. Unlike some of the other prep books on the market, I did not feel overwhelmed at the amount of information. The author does a good job of going through the material at a slow pace and clearly explaining the topics. Since I have only read the Programmer section, I can not comment on the Developer section. The only negative aspect of this book is that it is geared for the Java Programmer 1.2 exam, not the new 1.4 exam (released October 2002). While the 1.2 exam is still available, I imagine most people will be looking to take the new 1.4 test. The 2 versions of the exam are very similar, but 1.4 exam omits IO, AWT, and Swing. These 3 sections take up a large chunk of the programmer portion of the book (200 pages approx.). This said, you may want to wait for a new 1.4 version of the book to come out that covers the new topics (assertions, hashCode()/equals(), etc). Overall, a great exam preparation book and worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Dry but useful
Review: I already knew Java pretty well, but I'll be changing jobs soon and I wanted to put certification on my resume to make keyword-grepping HR bots happy. (Sigh.) I figured I could pass the test cold but didn't want to bet money on it, so I bought this book. I think it's a pretty good book, but I haven't read any other Java certification books so I have no basis for direct comparison. It's seems a bit dated, but the Programmer exam hasn't changed much in a couple of years (still based on JDK 1.2 without Swing) so that's okay -- adding more coverage of newfangled stuff that isn't on the current test would not please the intended audience. The one big change in format versus the sample test in this book is that the current test tells you how many answers to check on the more-than-one-choice multiple-choice questions. (Poke around some Java certification web sites.) It covers both the Programmer and Developer exams, so it's thicker than books that only cover the former. I haven't taken the latter, so I don't know how on-target that part is, but it was an interesting read. (Certainly more interesting than the half of the book that focuses on the Programmer exam, but that reflects the nature of the two exams. The Developer exam is about writing real code, while the Programmer exam is about being a human compiler and language lawyer.) The Developer section does not give a complete solution, though, just hints. I understand why the Sun-employed author doesn't want to do that, but they could have invented a problem similar to but not identical to a real assignment and then solved it completely. The Programmer exam is a multiple-choice test based largely on memorizing a bunch of exact rules about how the language works. Some of them are things you really need to know (e.g. what private and final mean), and some are just stupid memorization. (Do you remember the exact nested constructors of all those Writers and Readers and Streams in java.io, or do you just look them up in the handy online API help?) My one criticism of the book is that, perhaps because the main author works for Sun and is directly involved with the certification exams, the book isn't blunt enough in places. If I wrote it, I would say things like "I know it's idiotic, but memorize every single method signature in Thread and which ones are deprecated" rather than just teaching what really matters about Threads, because the exam unfortunately focuses on both equally rather than on the important parts. People buy this book because they want to pass a test, not because they want to learn the language. They've already done that using other sources. So the book should teach more directly to the test. Maybe the non-Sun-affiliated books are better in this regard. The book comes with a CD. It has a Java-based program that lets you take the chapter exercises and sample test (only one, unfortunately), which IMO beats taking it on paper. The text of the book is also available on the CD, in encrypted PDF, but unfortunately you have to run a Windows-only setup.exe to install it. Yes, a book about a portable language, stored in a portable document format, with a non-portable installer. Some people just don't get it. By the way, I passed the Programmer test, but it was harder than expected. I would not have passed it cold. My advice is to buy a certification book (can't say which one since I only read this one), study, and make sure that you can pass a couple of sample exams by a comfortable margin before you drop money on the real thing. If you don't already know Java pretty well, I don't think you'll be able to pass this exam via just studying a couple of books (unless you have a photographic memory) -- write some real code first. Even if you do know Java, write some small test programs dealing with areas you might be weak in (threads, AWT if you've done primarily non-GUI work, collections if you mostly use arrays, inner classes, exceptions) to cement what you've learned.
Rating: 
Summary: Many errors in the text but OK
Review: I don't like to read a 4th edition that have so many obvious errors in it. They should be gone by now. Most of the errors are only the text that have some kind of encoding errors which in this case means that a lot of the code samples that should contain " instead shows î. It is annoying to read strings like this: System.out.println(îSome stringî). Also the disk that comes with the book contains these errors along with contradictions in the answers.
I would try another book if I were You.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is good, but for the 310-035 exam - Java 1.4 .....
Review: I have the 2nd edition of this book too, and for the 310-025 exam - java 1.2 - this book was "six" stars!!! I pass the exam and really learn java in 2nd edition!!!
The 3rd edition is very good, but for the 310-035 exam some areas are not so "complete".
I took the exam today and i pass it!! Very good!! But i feel this book could be better!!!
The main areas that this book is not so good are:
1. Threads with anonymous classes,
2. garbage collection,
3. bidimensional arrays,
4. collections.
Rating:
Summary: Review questions are far too easy
Review: I haven't sit for the test yet and I'm not confident enough after reading just this one book. I got all the review question at the end of each chapter right and it was a major dissapointmet when I found myself unable to answer many of the questions on the mock exams. I've done many othe mock exams on the net getting just around 70%, so I decided I need another book. This book might be good just for getting an initiall preparation for the exam but it defently lacks deph on details must likely to come up in the real thing.
Rating:
Summary: Not a bad choice for success
Review: I passed these exams a few months ago and as I now look back and see my continually growing library of IT books and certification guides, the Sybex books simply stand out from the others. The book is pretty much on the mark for what the exams test. Having now completed my MCSE, Java, OCA and Linux++ certifications, I can honestly say that a combination of the Sybex guides and Self Test Software test exams will get you a pass mark in any of these certifications.
Rating:
Summary: This was all I needed!
Review: I studied this book carefully twice through and passed the exam easily. It may not be perfect, but it was all I needed.
Rating:
Summary: Too many errors for a 4th Edition
Review: Obviously no one made a CURSORY proof-reading of this edition, or they would have seen dozens of double-quotes in the examples appear as some odd character I have never seen before. Once I figured it out I could decode what was meant, but it was a distracting nuisance. Obviously no one made a DETAILED proof-reading of this edition, or they would have seen us taught the size in bits of a double as 16 instead of 64. Obviously no one made a PROGRAMMING proof-reading of this edition, or they would have seen 65 listed as the byte-code of a lower-case 'a' in one of the exam samples, which made me choose "none of the above". Because of the errors which I DID see, I had little confidence in anything else that seemed questionable.
The chapter on Collections (which was probably added in this edition as it is new in 1.4 I believe) was not detailed enough, and didn't satisfactorily answer the chapter's own review questions.
The sample exams were not anything like the real one, which I failed. I kissed that $150 goodbye.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book for Exam!
Review: This book is excellent to those who have Java programming experience. For those who are new to Java, I would recommend the "Programmer's Guide to Java Certification" by Khali Azim Mughal because it provides you a lot of practice exercises to help you understand the theory. The above combination would be perfect. In the real exam, the question style is similar to the RHE and PGJC book but the answers are tricky, make sure you understand completely to the OOP chapter(practice make perfect).Here, I took 10 minutes to break down the 10 exam section before I started to take to helping you concentrate on the major areas to pass the exam: a) Decla & Access Control ( 8 ) b)Flow Control & Exception Handing (6) c)Garbage Collection (3) d)Language Fundamentals(8) e)Operators & Assignments(7) f)OOP( Overloading/Overriding,inner class,etc)(9) g)Threads ( 4) h) Java.awt.package -Layout & Event(6) k) java.lang package (6) i) java.util package and (implicitly)java.io (2) There are 10 small source code and 2 long ones, the rest are theory.I passed the exam yesterday with very good score. Do not expect a perfect score but rather understand Java concept thoughly. I also purchased the gEsJava2 and Jcertify. Those are excellent mock exams. Very closed to the real exam, but make sure that you understand the concept first before taking them.Good Luck! Join me in the Java legacy <:-).
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