Trilight Zone

[tricore]

Developing Java Software is a text book, and is targeted towards university undergraduates, most likely in some form of computer science curriculum. It is also completely suitable for self-learners who want to teach themselves how to write software in Java. The book has been used by the authors when teaching undergraduate classes at University College London, so it has been fully tested in the academic environment.

There are five parts, with twenty four chapters between the first four parts and ten appendixes in the fifth. Each of the chapters are short, most are less than 40 pages, tightly focused and fairly self-contained.

The first part, the longest of them all, starts out with the introduction chapter that no book is complete without. Really, how many people who want to learn Java don't know that it used to be called Oak and was originally designed for set-top boxes? Anyway, after that little excursion, the book moves onto useful stuff like "Programming Fundamentals", introducing concepts like statements, variables and expressions. Next is "Adding Structure" where we discover methods and control structures. Chapter four is "Introducing Containers" and does a good job of covering arrays and the whole slew of container data structure classes in the standard library. Chapter five is a little time off for good behaviour, where we get to spend some time "Drawing Pictures" before heading into chapter six for "Classes and Objects". Chapter seven explains "Class Relationships" while chapter eight introduces us to "Exceptions". Chapter nine is "Introducing Concurrency with Threads". We finish up with chapter ten covering "User Interfaces".

Part two addresses the "Process of Programming" and this is where it really differentiates itself from the rest of the Java book crowd. Chapter eleven gives an overview of "The Programming Process". Chapter twelve begins the process of making that real by addressing "Unit Testing". Chapter thirteen continues the story with "Test-driven Programming Strategies". More practical advice comes in chapter fourteen as they introduce the reader to "Programming Tools".

Part three brings two "Case Studies in Developing Programs". Chapter fifteen introduces the case studies. The first study, "Contacts Book" is in chapter sixteen and the second, a "Pedestrian Crossing Simulation" is in chapter seventeen.

Part four is "The Java Programming Language in Detail". This is the more reference portion of the book and it's seven chapters cover variables, types and expressions, flow-control, classes and packages, inheritance and interfaces, exception handling, threads and concurrency.

Part five is the "Endmatter" and holds ten appendixes.

The first thing to like with this book is that it has an engaging style. The style comes not just from the body text, but also from the notes, tips and references in the margins of the book. As someone who learned Java almost ten years ago, I have difficulty plowing through yet more body text explaining the same old stuff that every other Java book covers; yet, jaded and cynical as I am, I enjoyed the sparks of honesty and humour in the text.

As I alluded to in my opening remarks, this book takes the approach of trying to not only teach Java, but how to approach and actually write programs using Java. The book takes an iterative approach and emphasizes the use of testing tools. Interestingly, they use TestNG rather than the de facto standard JUnit. This is the first book that I've seen that uses TestNG; perhaps JUnit is finally getting some competition?

The book is completely targeted at Java 5. All of the code examples use the new features where appropriate. This makes the book worth considering for those that already know Java but want to finally climb onboard with the latest version.

Naturally, there is a website available at www.devjavasoft.org where all of the source code for the programs in the book may be downloaded, together with answers to the exercises and any updates or revisions of the material in the book.

One of the challenges of writing or updating a book of this size is that it's possible (nay, almost guaranteed) to miss important things. The tip at the top of page 190 is a classic example, where the reader is advised that calling System.gc() will force the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to perform a garbage collection. This is not, and has never been, true. The most that the System.gc() call will do is let the JVM know that now would be a good time for it to garbage collect, but there are no guarantees that any collection will actually take place. With this being the third edition of the book, I expected errors of this sort to have been caught by now.

Another point to consider is that with this being a textbook the writing style is less like a mass-market book and it also includes questions and exercises at the end of each chapter. I normally avoid books of this sort, although this does seem to be one of the better ones.

I hate being picky about typography, especially with the average level being quite good these days, but this book is set in a smallish font for the amount of text on each page. It is a serif font, but I didn't find it the most comfortable to read. Also, and this is the most egregious fault in the whole book, the program listings are set in a proportional font! I could hardly believe it when I saw it. While I realize that the authors are unlikely to be responsible for the final font selections, I fear that it damages an otherwise strong book and does them a disservice.

This is a good book for learning Java. More importantly, it's a good book for learning to write programs with Java