ISBN0321487923

However, Amazon needs to find publisher that can scale down the prices on school textbook. The book was expensive!

It took me a couple months of my own time reading this book to prepare myself for a second round back to school. I have not programmed in almost 8 years and it was in C. I have to say that as an introductory programming book, Savitch did a superb job. You cannot get any more clear on the topics of the basics and foundations of the Java language than this. If you're just a passerby that just wants to get yourself started in Java, I recommend this book.

I've tried three other Java intro books, and they either aren't well-organized or they take such a dim view of the reader's abilities that it's like reading Programming for Pre-schoolers. Absolute Java is well-structured with both breadth & depth: it doesn't ignore programming basics, but covers a much larger scope of material than other books I've tried, while still including detail about intricacies of more sophisticated aspects of the language. Uses lots of good, robust examples. Love it.

I learned JAVA language a couple of years ago. As I have to reuse it recently, I borrow the 2nd Edtion from a computer science guy in the school, because many people told me this is the best one. After I read through it, I decided to purchase the newest edtion. It's INDEED the best one of the JAVA guides I've ever read.

I have read both books by Savitch and Deitel, and Savitch is by far clearer, although Savitch could still buff the textbook out a bit more with explaining "Compositon" topic better and clarifying paramater type .

Also Savitch summarizes every subsection and I am not 100% sure this is necessary in all subsections.

Savitch should urge his publisher not to begin a new subsection at the bottom of a page!

Savitch should make available more solutions in a separate manaul for those wishing it.

Overall I would say Savitch saved my day with my 2 JAVA courses. Deitel starts out with graphics, assuming the student will graps Java better but Deitel introduces some rather major concepts when doing this and I don't think the students would appreciate the complex ideas without using Savitch step by step methodologies. Deitel assumes a student undestands the concept of "extends", "implements" etc and this is exactly what graphics class uses and Deitel assumes students will understand these concepts just because they are graphical in nature. Savithc covers these concepts later when other major concepts are covered so that a student will appreciate the "extends" concepts much better.

So Savitch and Deitel cover the same material, but in different sequences. And I believe that Savitch's approach works better and helps the student understand the more difficult concepts later in the textbook.

gerard sagliocca,
gerard_sagliocca@yahoo.com