The Pragmatic Craftsman :: Simplicity from complexity : by Stanley Kubasek ::

Effective Java
by Joshua Bloch
ISBN 0201310058
Date Read 4/2005

My Rating

Let me ask you a simple question? Have you programmed in Java for more than a year or two? If no, than this book might not be for you. On the other hand, if you’ve been programming in Java, why haven’t you read this book? Seriously. Why haven’t you? How about you, Stas. I know. I know. I’ve been programming in Java for 5+ years and I read this book last month. I should have read it sooner. Much sooner. Anyway, I read it, so I’ll tell you why you should read it as well.

The Foreword of the book sums up the book very nicely:

Nice job, Mr. Bloch. Very nice work. I rate it 5 stars.

Like I said, I’ve had decent exposure to Java over the years, but when I was reading this book, I was constantly telling myself: Wow. This is cool. This is a neat way of doing things. How come I did not come across this earlier.

Mr. Bloch shows you how you can effectively use Java. He does not cover everything, but the areas he covers are really helpful. Plus, he writes good English: easy to read and down to earth (I wish more authors were writing like that).

The following topics are covered in the book:
• Creating and Destroying Objects
• Methods Common to All Objects
• Classes and Interfaces
• Methods
• General Programming
• Exceptions
• Threads
• Serialization

Read it and you will be a better Java programmer.