Java book for experienced coder

Khannie

So....my problem is this: I have 7 years coding experience. I'm a good coder. However, I haven't coded java in 5 years and now I'm being thrown back in the deep end.

I don't need to learn about loops and such basics (though I accept that any book will have this), but I do need to re-learn about (for example) threading and exception handling, again though, I already have the basics down on these.....I'm certain that my java is lacking though. I came across a finally clause this morning and was like "wtf? oh....vauge...memories....coming....back".

I don't want to be mollycoddled by a book though.

Any suggestions?

cousin_borat

What about some of the concepts in Spring and EJB 3.0. Inversion of Control, Dependency injection, probably most appropriate for you the Spring JDBC component which takes care of the Checked Exception problem of JDBC. Theres an excellent book on Java Reflection which is also worth reading, can't think of the name will get back to you.

Khannie

Cheers.

Hobbes

"SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 5".

Will explain the stuff while requiring you to have some knowledge already of Java and prepares you for the exam as well.

warrenaldo

i would second Hobbes book. i am a java programmer with 2 years experience - not a lot i know. i am studying for this certificcation as it seems to me the best refresher guide there is. and its great reference material for most of the basics.

was using it last week to find out the best type of collection to use to fit my particular problem - great aid.

Khannie

Thanks lads. Seriously considering that actually. May just do the exam too. I take it that it'll be a while before scjp for J6 comes out?

ixoy

Khannie wrote:

Thanks lads. Seriously considering that actually. May just do the exam too. I take it that it'll be a while before scjp for J6 comes out?

I'd imagine it must be soon - Sun launched Java 6 last as the standard JRE last week and all the Java updates are now pushing it...

matrim

Does anyone know a similar book but for C++. I'm in a similar position to the OP but will be using C++ instead of java

Civilian_Target

APress does a book called Pro Java which is pretty good - just explains all the niggly java stuff without defining things like classes for you...

Khannie

Well...I've ordered the scjp book. The exam looks handy enough for an experienced coder so I reckon I'll just do it. For the sake of 200 odd euro it'd be nice to have on the CV.

Thanks for the suggestions lads.

Colin Mac

matrim wrote:

Does anyone know a similar book but for C++. I'm in a similar position to the OP but will be using C++ instead of java

Accelerated C++

cousin_borat

EJB 3.0 is a very good area to be knowledgeable especially the Java Persistance API since it will be competing with O/R frameworks like Hibernate and Ibatis.

Heres a good E-Book on the subject you need to have an account on TSS to get it.

http://www.theserverside.com/tt/books/wiley/masteringEJB3/index.tss

Khannie

scjp book arrived today. Weighs in at 800 pages. That's gonna take me a while to get through. On average I'll be giving it just 40 minutes a day.

edit: Read the first 10 pages there over lunch. First impressions are that it's perfect for me. No nonsense.