Absolute Java

by Walter J. Savitch

This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book.

Praised for providing an engaging balance of thoughtful examples and explanatory discussion, best-selling author Walter Savitch explains concepts and techniques in a straightforward style using understandable language and code enhanced by a suite of pedagogical tools.  Absolute Java is appropriate for both introductory and intermediate programming courses introducing Java.

Genres: Programming, Reference, Computer Science, Nonfiction, School, Technology, Academic

1272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 10, 2003

Reviews

[Bokieie · Rating 4 out of 5]

These books are great. Really easy to read and understand, but not too boring. A great foundation and/or a refresher.

[Yunge Hao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why are so many computer science books so obsessed with quoting Bible or Shakespear(and sometimes there's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...) before each chapter or even each section starts?? And for this author, this situation goes further and out of control. I always wonder, while scanning through this easy elementray stuff, is he teaching programming or children literature? Some of the quotes are very profound, though.
Review Add a review

[Greg Chabala · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here's a sample of the text: https://x.com/its_bvisness/status/198...

Just to be clear, this is not a good explanation of the topic, and is actively incorrect in many ways.

Even grok could articulate some of the failings: https://x.com/grok/status/19844190771...

I would recommend avoiding this book.

[Hannah]

Yes, I put my Java textbook on goodreads. They--both the book and the language--deserve to be worshipped.

[Agne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very wordy textbook. I felt like for a beginner this was a tough to understand book.

Why are textbooks on goodreads 😂

[Jonathan Lovelace · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a basic introduction to programming and to Java, I suppose it's OK. It seemed unnecessarily brief on points I thought would most warrant extended discussion, and unnecessarily expansive on points I thought would have been better handled very briefly, but since very little of the material was at all new to me, I don't have a good sense of how his pacing and organization serve his intended audience.

There is one trivial problem, however, that I find very telling: his placement of braces in sample code. In C and C++, it's a matter of significant debate as to whether opening braces should be alone on a line, visually aligned with their matching closing braces, or immediately following the statement or expression the block is attached to---some companies, organizations, and major projects require the one, and some the other. So if this were a book teaching one of those languages, his consistent use of the former style would be reasonable, though it wastes the equivalent of a page or two of vertical space. In Java, however, no major project uses that style; this book, and examples largely produced from (a later version of) it by my current instructor, are the only places I have ever seen Java code using this style. So where else is this book likely to mislead?

[Mahmoud El-Naggar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book for Java beginners or information refreshment but can be organized better than that
as an example
1- File IO chapter not complete about most important classes on java.io package , why you focus on Scanner and PrintWriter classes
2- as a Java beginner I will not be interested in a whole chapter about Recursion ,just a few examples will be good
3- UML and Patterns chapter it will be better if it was after all OOP topics (classes and interfaces) and put it in practical example (I prefer Swing/Database ) example
4- A whole Chapter about database programming and use design patterns (specially MVC Pattern ) will be super great
5- Network programming very important topic so also chapter about it will be great too

[Suhaib · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is amazing if you have studied the same book "Absolute C++". The author used the same template and the same design in his book C++. So this would make it really simple for someone who hasn't studied Java before

[քամի · Rating 3 out of 5]

oop֊ի կուրսի շրջանակներում եմ կարդացել, բայց ջաւա սովորելու համար յուսով եմ, որ աւելի լաւ գրքեր էլ կան(head first java֊ն ինձ համար աւելի լաւ էր), ու մարդիկ սրա «յոյսին չեն»։ ինչեւէ, պրոյեկտները հետաքրքիր են։

[Ramona · Rating 3 out of 5]

A concise, complete book for those who already know a lot about programming. A good reference, but perhaps a little curt for those of us who need more hand-holding.

[Manaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my book for my first programming course in my major (Software Engineering)

Very good and helpful for beginner students in programming :)