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Subject:"Teach Yourself Java" book From:"Tamminga, Ernie" <et -at- DSC -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 30 Oct 1997 09:48:03 -0800
Some cautions about that book:
(1)There are quite a few grammatical & spelling errors, most of which
aren't catastrophic (i.e., you can usually tell what they MEANT to say).
However, there are also (not as many) instances of unclear writing,
wherein it's very DIFFICULT to tell what they meant to say. On technical
topics, this can be frustrating.
(2)There are some technical errors in the descriptive prose. Not too
many, but again -- frustrating, when you're depending on the book to
TEACH you.
(2)Much worse: there are typographical, and other, errors in the sample
Java code. The most frequent kind of error (though not the only kind)
has to do with the misspelling, or inconsistent spelling, of variable
names in the code. These are enough to make the programs fail to run.
I e-mailed "reports" of specific errors to the publisher, as I
discovered batches of them. Never got any acknowledgement, though.
In short, I found myself debugging the authors' code while
simultaneously trying to learn the language. I abandoned the book after
about "day 7".
Because of time constraints, I had to set the Java-learning project
aside after that, and proceeded to learn Visual BASIC. That language
isn't the subject of this post, but... if you ever go looking for a
beginner's book on VB, "Visual BASIC From the Ground Up" is EXCELLENT.
--------
Ernie Tamminga
Director, InfoEngineering
Digital Sound Corporation
-----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are my own, and not necessarily those of Digital
Sound Corporation
<original SNIPped message>
>I've recently discovered "Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days". Haven't
>started into it yet, but on a quick glance through it looks very
>promising, very well-structured.
>
>
> Your friend and mine,
> Matt
> <insert standard disclaimer here>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
