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by andymoe 5434 days ago
I'd love to hear a good java book recomendation. Is there a K&R kind of book for java?

I also have to say that maybe iOS is bit easier to get started with but have the author come talk to me after doing ten or twenty apps wrangling core data, list view, sprites, physics engines, universal apps and mixing c c++ and objectice-c and tell me that rabbit hole is not pretty damn deep.
3 comments
mahmud 5434 days ago
Hortsman & Cornell's, two volume "Core Java 1.2". I only read the first.

Gosling's "The Java Programming Language".

And Josh Bloch's "Effective Java".

After that, Java Concurrency in Practice.

Langr's "Agile Java" is good for just that.

Bloch, Goetz, and Doug Lea have each written excellent books on java concurrency.

That's just about all the java books I would want to recommend. Many j-books are trash.

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rkalla 5434 days ago
+1

Effective Java is a must-read once you understand Java. It points out what is magic and what is not. What takes up processing time and what doesn't.

It pulls the sheet back on the abstractions and shows you how everything works and what you should be aware of.

Doug Lea is a brilliant developer in the concurrency space. With his Executor framework that went into (Java 5?) he suddenly made threaded programming as easy as possible to get right.

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RodgerTheGreat 5434 days ago
Don't forget Java Puzzlers, also by Bloch: http://www.javapuzzlers.com/ Not only is it a fun read, but it delves very deeply into case studies of the dark corners of the Java language.
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andymoe 5434 days ago
Awesome. Thanks so much for the recommendations everyone.
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rattab 5434 days ago
I don't know how relevant it is for mobile development but I'd recommend Effective Java by Joshua Bloch (http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Java-2nd-Joshua-Bloch/dp/032...). It's essentially the equivalent of Effective C++ for Java and it does a good job of explaining how to properly use the language. It also contains quite a few general programming advises which are applicable to other languages. Just keep in mind that it assumes that you already know the language and have a bit of experience under your belt.
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cema 5434 days ago
Also, consider The Well Grounded Java Developer which is now in Manning's Early Access Program (http://www.manning.com/evans/).
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