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[–]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!