Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

This book is so fun to read, i love this way of learning. I have some base with C# and this book help me to understand more things about OOP.

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

Like all other head first book, this is also a great read.

Keep up the good work guys.

Boby Thomas

www.bobsindia.com (http://www.bobsindia.com/)

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

I just finished the book, it was epic...

I would totally recommended it to anyone who wants to learn how to play the game of J233-and only-acronyms and techs.

/m

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

Definitely the best technical book I've ever read. This would have to be the first one where you don't feel like you deserve a medal for making it to the end! Great explanations, real world examples, and just all around fun. Now if you just had a C++ version...

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

Most definitely the best Java book that i've read. It has made my life a little simpler. Reading a 100 pages felt like 5 minutes. The book is fun to read and it keeps you interested.

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

I teach computer science at the High school, Undergrad and graduate level and at every turn, I have added Head First Java to the list of recommended readings.

It has been a Fun, interesting way to get the very visual learner "generation Xbox" to understand OOP and Java in particular.

I wish is was a full fledged academic text book!

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

I've been playing in 'the shallow end' of the Java language for awhile, and skipped over some things like javadoc and jar files. Most documentation on these subjects are laborious to wade through and make sense of.

One thing I do to evaluate a book - is look up a specific subject I've had trouble with or had skipped in the past to see how they present the subject.

Its amazing - its clear now. You have to have this book nearby - just to clear up those ffuzzy parts.

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

Topics such as multithreading, streams, and networking seemed to be just a bunch of nonsense to me until I picked up this book. I would say that the Head First series is probably one of the best things that happened in the history of computer literature publishing. What I admire about the series most is the unprecedented clarity. The humor was alright. The graphics didn't only look great and funny but they CERTAINLY were VERY EFFECTIVE as far as getting the point across to my brain dead smack clear.

As far as content and formatting is concerned, I really appreciated the handwritten annotations alongside the written codes. I would say that I have NEVER seen this EXTREMELY VALUABLE method in any other computer book. I also like the use of ample white space - another feature that most books neglect. From an educational standpoint, I see that the crossword puzzles, quizzes, and small assignments are dead smack relevant to the material presented. Despite Academia's opinion that this series may be unprofessional or even absurd, I would surely use this book as the text since I see its unparalleled effectiveness in teaching concepts that are not the easiest to grasp.

Now, on the downsides. I was hoping that the Head First Java book explained the INFAMOUS GridBagLayout and its SINISTER partner GridBagConstraints. I imagine that the Head First explanation of this extremely complex and confusing layout manager would just do the trick of DEMYSTIFYING this SICKLY AGONIZING part of the Java AWT/Swing. Perhaps there should be a second "Head First Java II" book that would include such topic, along with the difficult JTree and JTable, and other topics not covered in the first Head First Java book.

All in all, the Head First series is WAY easier than the Idiot's or Dummy versions (at least for Java). It surely slaughters Deitel & Deitel's Java books more intended for high school or college text. It even trumps the allegedly easiest Visual ("Read Less, Learn More.") series in EASE, CLARITY, PRACTICALITY, DETAIL, and IN-DEPTHNESS.

I would REALLY like to see the following topics CLARIFIED in future Head First publications:

1. JavaScript/CSS/DHTML

2. JSP/Tomcat

3. PHP/MySQL/Apache

4. C++

5. Data Structures and Algorithms (Lists, Trees, Sorting, etc.)

6. Assembly Language (Various processors)

7. XML

8. ASP/IIs

9. Game Programming

10. Web Design/Usability

11. TCP/IP and Network Administration

.

.

.

Every single computer-related topic DESERVES to have a Head First publication for it! To whoever is responsible for the publication of the Head First series, THANK YOU SO MUCH! You've done a WONDERFUL job!

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

This books is a very useful to learning. The writing style of this book makes it very easy to undestand. It is good especially for beginners as I am. In one word, excellent introduction to Java programming. At last but not least, the funny pics in this book i love too.

Lucy

Comments about oreilly Head First Java:

I wanted to respond to Douglas, who is having problems with the QuizCardBuilder... First of all, Douglas, or anyone, you can always write to us directly for help if you're struggling with an exercise in the book, at [...] (my personal email, which is printed in the intro to the book, but I know a lot of folks skip the intro ; ).

I'll be happy to walk you through it. But in response to your comments, the code in the book and in the JAR do compile and run, so it appears that you are having a classpath problem, which we could help you correct with a little more info.

From the error you posted, the compiler simply cannot find the QuizCard class, which, if you place it in the same directory as QuizCardBuilder will compile *unless* your current directory is not in the classpath.

So, you could try the following:

javac -classpath . *.java, and see if that helps.

I agree that it is *terribly* frustrating when examples don't work, and if you are having a problem, then even if the code in the book (and JAR) is correct, we might have missed a critical part of the explanation that makes it work for you. Perhaps much earlier in the book, we didn't do a good enough job at making things clear, and for that we apologize and would like to help. In the book's defense, though, the QuizCardBuilder *does* work, both in the book and in the JAR.

So, if you let us know what we can do to help, we'll do our best for you.

As for the content being diluted with contrived wording, we have to agree with you. This we do by design, as part of the learning approach explained at the beginning of the book. But what works for many can really be annoying to some. We hope that, before buying, readers will look at the book or sample pages and see if they find the style appealing... or, well, NOT. ; ) We don't want *anyone* to *not* know what they're getting into, so the sample pages are an excellent representation of what the book is really like. A Head First book is quite different from a traditional text, and we've done our best to make that clear on the cover, the intro, the descriptions on O'Reilly and Amazon, author interviews, etc.

But again, if there is anything that we can do to help you get through the exercises, we are here. We listed our personal emails in the intro , specifically because we feel the same way that you do--it's really frustrating when you can't get an exercise to work, especially in a book that advertises itself as a "learning book". I'm still encouraged by the fact that you made it all the way to chapter 14, though. If you'll give us a chance, we'll do whatever we can to help you get through the rest.

-Kathy Sierra (Bert too)