Sams Teach Yourself Java in 21 Days (Covers Java 11/12)

Very easy to follow and great context for all examples. Highly recommended.

To be in chapter 2 and already have an error with no help to fix is just appalling. How is such a trash book already in the 8th edition? How is this getting anything other than a 1 start .. just terrible..Still in chapter 2 - it says Octal 012 = 9 .. are you kidding me .. you can't get a simple octal conversion right in the book. I don't understand how such a crappy book is so popular. So horribly written.Now in chapter 3 - having us use one package to create the class but using another package in the code. ABSOLUTELY NO EXPLANATION on the package mismatch. This is chapter 3 and this is the 3rd inconsistency with zero explanation. This has to be the worst programming instruction book on the planet.

this book is so terribly written i can't even believe this is being sold. the book uses netbeans as an ide. it skips over several parts of installation and setup of netbeans. this resulted in a lot of confusion when netbeans was not working properly. i wasn't sure what if anything i had done wrong. i finally got netbeans working after about three hours and 4 uninstall/reinstalls. in the appendix , where the book instructs to install netbeans it tells you to change the default name of the main class ( but to keep it), then in the first chapter of the book where you are to use this project file, the book instructs you to deselect the option of create main class (the book had already instructed you to keep it). it is half heartedly written . it seems to rely on having the reader simply copy code verbatim without any explanation and hoping you'll just pick things up by typing code it hasn't explained the meaning of. Also, the solutions on their web site are different than what they have you do in the book (the code in the book doesn't work) WOW. absolute dumpster fire

The "21 Days" in the title implies a sense of haste or at least an acknowledgment of time constraint. As such, one would expect each of the 21 chapters to be readable in one sitting, i.e. one to two hours. This is not the case. The chapters run 20-30 pages more or less. Yes, you could technically read a chapter a day, if you had a full day of nothing else to do, but is that the expectation? The reason the chapters are long is because they are (or at least the first is) stuffed with nonsense. Then there is the author's approach. After page after page of nonsense in chapter one, objects are suddenly introduced. There is talk about attributes, class variables, instance variables, et cetera, before the concepts of variables and types are even introduced. I accept that this is an introductory chapter and not a deep dive, but name-dropping the jargon was bound to irritate and I had no confidence that the author would resolve this in the upcoming chapters. I stopped after chapter one. A quick glance at chapter two was enough to confirm my no-confidence. If you are a Java beginner and want to read the book in 21 days, go ahead and prove me wrong.

This is a really good book with lots of good information in it. I think the 21 days is just kinda a selling promo thing, sure you could read the book in 21 days but I think it's better to take your time and read it slowly implementing what you are reading.I suppose the 21 days also kinda implies that this is something a novice could pickup, read, understand, and know Java. Let's be real, if you are new to programming this might not be the best choice for you. But after reading and understanding what variables are, how classes work, then this could be a good option for you.tl;dr: I've been a developer for over 15 years, I found it really useful and straight to the point. If you are brand new to programming it might be worth looking for something easier - but that's not a fault of the book.

Education