Reviews for Objects First with Java: A Practical Introduction Using BlueJ

1. Pretty interesting...

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2010

   I'm 50-50 with this book. Whilst it does provide good ideas and is great as a supplementary product, it can only be used in a university format. I don't think it's a learn-by-yourself tool and I only ever looked at it in my first year. Now in my final year I haven't really given it much attention.
   
   In the end, I think it's okay but the internet is a much better tool for learning about Java rather than this book.

2. A nice introduction

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2010

   This is a nice introduction to Java. Once you've actually learn't java then you'll want to ditch BlueJ and use a more advanced developing tool, however as a teaching aid for somebody who is completely new to the language, it is a very nice easy walk through of the basics.
   
   The book is structured so that it gives information about a given topic, and then gives you sample exercises to do (code and BlueJ included on a CD), one of my criticisms would have to be that there are no solutions to these exercises, so if you genuinely get stuck on something, then unless you get help from elsewhere your going to remain stuck on it. The book introduces library classes, however doesn't deeply discuss them in detail (it doesn't even mention regular expressions).
   
   Overall its a nice introduction to Java but you'll soon need something more complex (I suppose that's mentioned in the the title: "A Practical Introduction to Java").

3. Software Eng student

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 2009

   Excellent book if you actually want to LEARN Java. Some students don't like it because all they want is to pass the module and are too lazy to do the work.
   Before this book I had never done any programming and although there's a lot to learn I found this book to be a resource I couldn't be without during my first year and I really enjoyed the challenging exercises.

4. Do not buy this book unless instructed by lecturers

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2009

   This book is absolutely useless. I was told to buy it by a university lecturer as the course content relied heavily on use of the book. The book teaches how to use BlueJ not how to effectively program in java, it misses some of the simplest constructs. So, don't buy this book out of choice, only buy it if it is "essential reading" from your course. If you want a very good alternative to actually learn java; buy Java in a nutshell from O'reilly

5. Useless

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2009

   This book is basically useless, there are no answers to the exercises, you have to do the practical work to help reinforce the ideas, but there is no way to check if you have done it correctly.
   And way too expensive!