Practical Java Programming Language Guide - Softcover

Haggar, Peter

3.72

40 ratings by Goodreads

9780201616460: Practical Java Programming Language Guide

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201616467 ISBN 13: 9780201616460

Publisher: Addison Wesley, 2000

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This book does for Java what Scott Meyers' classic Effective C++ did for C++: identifies the key practices and rules that enable good developers to become great developers. IBM Java expert Peter Haggar brings together 68 rules for writing better Java 2 code, complete with insightful discussions and real-world examples. These are the "rules of thumb" expert developers have discovered: guidelines that consistently lead to clear, correct, and efficient code. Haggar focuses on the key issues virtually every Java developer faces, from general techniques (such as when to use polymorphism and when not to use method overloading); to working with objects, exception handling, performance, multithreading, classes, interfaces, and beyond. Haggar has a remarkable talent for crystallizing a problem and solution, and communicating it in words and code. The result: a book that can help any Java developer get dramatically better results -- fast.

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Review:

Most programmers want to be better than they are and, while there are many excellent books on Java, there are few good guides to Java programming style. This one is aimed at those with some Java programming experience and aspirations to becoming a Java guru. To this end, Haggar presents you with code snippets intended to accomplish specific tasks and he invites you to predict the results.

This approach is designed to illustrate gotchas, some of which are surprisingly subtle. You use the book interactively: hence the affected decision to use the word Praxis (an archaic version of practice) to differentiate the 68 sections. In Objects and Equality Praxis, Haggar illustrates the differences between using on primitive integer values and on integer references. He then proceeds to show how making assumptions about the way the "equals" method works can cause even stranger--yet still legal--behaviours.

Basically, Peter Haggar is teaching you not to make assumptions about the way Java does things. A neat example is the Notify All methods which ensures all waiting threads are woken up. Threads activity is often dependent on the condition of other threads. You might reasonably assume Notify All wakes threads in priority order--but it doesn't. Its action is JVM-dependent.

Object- oriented programming is supposed to remove the need to know what's happening behind the scenes--but this is the real world, not a theoretical one. Understanding Java's underpinnings will make you a faster, more efficient, more highly paid programmer and newbies will sit beneath your swivel chair awaiting wisdom. --Steve Patient

From the Back Cover:

Written by an "in-the-trenches" expert on the Java™ programming language, this book provides readers with a practical approach to producing correct, efficient, and robust code.

This broad-ranging guide can help programmers with varying levels of expertise to understand Java more completely and to maximize their coding effectiveness. This book's rules-based format examines 68 key topics on how to improve your code, providing crisp, well-written examples and solutions. All of the examples and solutions are accompanied by thorough explanations for achieving a working solution of your own. This practical approach to programming and design describes the best practices used by experienced programmers. Intended for the intermediate to advanced Java programmer, the Practical Java™ Programming Language Guide is organized into individual lessons, so it can either be read from cover to cover or by individual topic.

Topics discussed include:

Objects and equality
Exception handling
Performance
Multithreading
Classes and interfaces

If you want to spend less time debugging, optimizing, and tuning your code, this example-oriented, down-to-earth guide is full of practical techniques for exploiting the Java programming language. The 68 topics were chosen based on their relevance to effective and efficient programming practices. A special section focusing on performance provides valuable insights into Java performance issues and useful performance improvement techniques. If you want real-world, sound advice on building applications using the Java programming language, this book is essential reading.

0201616467B04062001

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