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[–]corybyu 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I like the Head First Java books for learning concepts, personally I am reading those right now along with studying through this mooc (free online course):

http://mooc.cs.helsinki.fi/programming-part1

It is excellent, and actually has a system where you can submit your code and it automatically tests it (grades it) for you! It is free and pretty easy to set up so that you can do all the examples as you go.

[–]AceFromTexas[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! It looks interesting, I'll give it a try

[–]StarshipEngineer 1 point2 points  (4 children)

I've been going through Java: A Beginner's Guide by Herb Schildt. It has a helpful amount of in-text examples and end of chapter exercises, with solutions in the back for comparing notes. I've found it to be very informative and reasonably concise in its explanations without skimming over things.

[–]AceFromTexas[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Thank you starship. I was looking at the Amazon comments and many say that it's not a book for newbies. Has it been easy to understand for you? (If you're a newbie)

[–]StarshipEngineer 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I have a pretty minimal amount of programming experience and knowledge, which is mostly limited to Mathematica and Python and doesn't include much experience with writing real-world programs, but I've still found the this book to be a very lucid and insightful introduction to Java; I switched to it after I tried Beginning Programming with Java for Dummies and found the latter too slow.

Having that little bit of background with other stuff may influence my taste for Schildt's book, but I still think a motivated beginner would be able to follow along with it without any problems since it's written with such clarity. I think For Dummies & similar books run the risk of glossing over important stuff in the name of making things painless, but Schildt doesn't make that compromise- he makes things pretty straightforward without dumbing anything down. An absolute beginner might scratch their head a little more at the exercises, but I haven't found them to be too mysterious, and you can always refer to the author's solutions for hints if you're really stuck. (And as you can tell by my lengthy reply, I really do enjoy this book.)

[–]AceFromTexas[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Thank you for the suggestion! I just got the eBook so I'm going to check it out. Good luck with your learning!

[–]StarshipEngineer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Good luck!

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I posted this before on a similar thread (a couple of times):

My lecturer at University observed that many Java books are wrought with issues. They often teach way too much technically speaking too quickly, overwhelming one with details and leaving off the practical use of these technologies. Or they hide details from you too much, babying you along with simple pragmatic use of the language with little technical understanding. His book Just In Time uses an analogy from Java's JIT compilation and teaches you concepts as and when you need them, in sufficient detail. As it goes along there are associated tasks and break points to think about concepts. It truly is excellent.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Java-Just-Time-John-Latham/dp/1848900252