Screaming Penguin

My latest review (its been awhile) covers a very good book from the Wiley Press. Java Pitfalls by Michael C. Daconta, J Paul Keller and Keith Bohnenberger. Conclusion: this is very helpful book that covers a category oft overlooked. There are a plethora of books about basic Java, or Java specific this or that (RMI, EJB, JSP, etc) but there arent enough about the subtelties of Java basics. Java is easy, but at the same time can be tricky because its so easy. This book touts ' time saving solutions to improve programs ' and lives up to that moniker. This is not a basics book and requires some knowledge of Java to begin with. The book has a quick and concise writing style with real world scenario based examples. This book has sections devoted to Language Syntax, Language Support, Utilities and Collections, Input/Output, GUI Presentation, GUI Control, Performance and Miscellaneous. Personally I could live without the GUI stuff, because I dont use it at all, but the rest was very enlightening (even for someone that has been writing Java for a few years.) From the standard Strings vs. StringBuffers, == vs. .equals(), and Arrays vs. Vectors and ArrayLists to forward references, proper cloning, ResourceBundles vs Property objects, Serialization, Reflection, Object pools, debugging and more. Good book. Get it. Rating. 4.3 Penguin Afros (out of a possible 5.2 on our scale.)   Java Pitfalls: Amazon