Books
I’ll use this page to maintain a directory of books I’ve used in my time studying various aspects of programming. Bear in mind that I have no formal training, so if you feel I’ve done some good things in my coding efforts, either these books or Google searches have led to my understanding. (Inversely, if I produce products on par with feces, these may be resources to avoid).
This listing also includes quick reference listings. These are just whatever I decide to use to refer to the book. I’ll be adding custom fields to posts in the future to reference books, and the quick reference label of a book (located on the first line) is what will be used to identify it. The format for each book is as follows:
QuickReference
“Title” Author. ISBN [Optionally: Alternate Form]
Comments and Description
Note that, unless otherwise noted, the media included with the book has not been used and therefore has no bearing on my opinion. So, here goes.
SJC-Java
“Java for Engineers and Scientists” CHAPMAN, Stephen J. 0130335207
The book I started with, and a pretty good one for getting the basics of Java down. I found Chapters 2-11 especially helpful, but when I first started I wasn’t interested in graphics and skipped 12-15. 16 is pretty good, on input and output, but not the best I’ve dealt with. Definitely useful for a beginner, it takes very much a “this is how you get stuff done” approach.
TB-Java
“Understanding Object-Oriented Programming with Java” BUDD, Timothy. 032121174X
This has been instrumental in giving me my current insights on OOP principles. I’ve said before and will never deny, I am a little bit object-obsessed, and its because this book has shown me the possibilities with it. Definitely a bit more of an advanced book… while it’s nice to use this early on to get used to the practices within it, it helps greatly to understand the programming in general first.
ME-JAVASQL
“Understanding SQL and Java Together” MELTON, Jim and EISENBERG, Andrew. 1558605622
This book started me originally on connecting databases with Java. It will teach you the basics of SQL and Java, as it’s meant to help either SQL or Java developers to work with the other. It explicitly explains which chapters you’ll need depending on what you’re hoping to do, and does a good job of teaching it. It had me excited for a long time about SQL, until eventually I caught wind of JDO.
RL-SQL
“Introduction to SQL” van der LANS, Rick. 0201596180
Aside from the last name throwing me for a loop (capitalization-wise here), I found this book immensely helpful. It was this book that taught me essentially everything I know about SQL and allowed me to set up the database I originally had, which was a tangled mass of foreign keys and indexes and everything else. But I had built it all by hand and it all worked flawlessly at the time, both accomplishments I attribute to this book.
DB-JAVA
“Developing Games in Java” BRACKEEN, David. 1592730051
This has been a remarkably useful book. It covers a lot of features for a variety games all the way from the classic “set your trajectory, hit the target” game up to a 3D shooter. It’s remarkably complex yet quite easy to understand. Definitely have some knowledge going into this, but if you’re considering games at all, this is a book to check.
WB-JAVA
“Java Collections” WATT, David and BROWN, Deryck. 047189978X
This is another more advanced book, and it claims to be second-year university coursework. Regardless, if you’ve gotten the gist of programming, and I’d recommend a little bit of OOP practices in your toolbox as well, then this book is a very good next step. This begins you on understanding code efficiency, and then uses that to show you the pros and cons of numerous different collections with Java. Quite helpful indeed.
RK-JAVA
“Object Oriented Programming through Java” KRISHNA, P Radha. 1420047922
This is one of few books that I just didn’t much like, but please bear in mind, I got this one specifically for the short bit it had on JDBC (connecting Java to databases) rather than the main content of the book itself. Taken out of context, I didn’t find the chapter helpful. I didn’t even attempt the remainder of the book and can’t rightfully give much of an opinion on it.
RR-JAVA
“Java Data Objects” ROOS, Robin. 0321123808 [PDF: Free online.]
I very much enjoy this book. It helps that I have a fully-searchable, easily transported copy of it, and that I got it for free. Niceties aside, however, the information in it has proven invaluable. It is a major factor in my choosing to use JDO rather than SQL for my simulation, and it is the main player in my understanding of JDO as a whole.
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