Effective Java: Programming Language Guide (Java Series) at Dominant Systems Book Store

Written for the working Java developer, Joshua Bloch's Effective Java Programming Language Guide provides a truly useful set of over 50 best practices and tips for writing better Java code. With plenty of advice from an indisputable expert in the field, this title is sure to be an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to get more out of their code.

As a veteran developer at Sun, the author shares his considerable insight into the design choices made over the years in Sun's own Java libraries (which the author acknowledges haven't always been perfect). Based on his experience working with Sun's best minds, the author provides a compilation of 57 tips for better Java code organized by category. Many of these ideas will let you write more robust classes that better cooperate with built-in Java APIs. Many of the tips make use of software patterns and demonstrate an up-to-the-minute sense of what works best in today's design. Each tip is clearly introduced and explained with code snippets used to demonstrate each programming principle.

Early sections on creating and destroying objects show you ways to make better use of resources, including how to avoid duplicate objects. Next comes an absolutely indispensable guide to implementing "required" methods for custom classes. This material will help you write new classes that cooperate with old ones (with advice on implementing essential requirements like the equals() and hashCode() methods).

The author has a lot to say about class design, whether using inheritance or composition. Tips on designing methods show you how to create understandable, maintainable, and robust classes that can be easily reused by others on your team. Sections on mapping C code (like structures, unions, and enumerated types) onto Java will help C programmers bring their existing skills to Sun's new language. Later sections delve into some general programming tips, like using exceptions effectively. The book closes with advice on using threads and synchronization techniques, plus some worthwhile advice on object serialization.

Whatever your level of Java knowledge, this title can make you a more effective programmer. Wisely written, yet never pompous or doctrinaire, the author has succeeded in packaging some really valuable nuggets of advice into a concise and very accessible guidebook that arguably deserves a place on most any developer's bookshelf. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

Best practices and tips for Java
Creating and destroying objects (static factory methods, singletons, avoiding duplicate objects and finalizers)
Required methods for custom classes (overriding equals(), hashCode(), toString(), clone(), and compareTo() properly)
Hints for class and interface design (minimizing class and member accessibility, immutability, composition versus inheritance, interfaces versus abstract classes, preventing subclassing, static versus nonstatic classes)
C constructs in Java (structures, unions, enumerated types, and function pointers in Java)
Tips for designing methods (parameter validation, defensive copies, method signatures, method overloading, zero-length arrays, hints for Javadoc comments)
General programming advice (local variable scope, using Java API libraries, avoiding float and double for exact comparisons, when to avoid strings, string concatenation, interfaces and reflection, avoid native methods, optimizing hints, naming conventions)
Programming with exceptions (checked versus run-time exceptions, standard exceptions, documenting exceptions, failure-capture information, failure atomicity)
Threading and multitasking (synchronization and scheduling hints, thread safety, avoiding thread groups)
Serialization (when to implement Serializable, the readObject(), and readResolve() methods)

Customer Reviews & Comments
This book contains a generous cross-section of the knowledge that differentiates Java gurus from advanced Java programmers. I've been working full-time in Java since 1995, prior to version 1.0. I've also written books and articles on Java and have been teaching Java at the University level as a sideline for four years. In that time I've accumulated a great deal of "expert" knowledge about the language, the JVM, and the APIs and developed opinions on the best approaches to use in Java. At this point, reading books such as this that contain a collection of tips and advice I am usually satisfied to gain one new piece of knowledge; I learned at least six new things from this book. Of the 50+ books on Java I've read, this book contains by far the most comprehensive and useful collection of that hard-won knowledge of core Java. The bonus is the clear and concise manner in which it is presented. Bloch is dead-on. There isn't a single factual error or piece of bad advice in the book. The most I came up with were a couple of omissions on some of the topics. However, omissions are inevitable given the technical depth of some of the topics Bloch covers, such as serialization, exceptions and threads. I offer only two caveats about the book. The first is that the book is for advanced Java programmers. This is not to say that this information is not useful to every Java programmer, but you need to have a comprehensive knowledge of Java in order to appreciate many of the topics. This book does not provide comprehensive coverage, but rather fills in the detail and subtleties. I teach a Java IV class and recommend this to my students as additional reading after completing the class. The other caveat is that this book is written from the perspective of writing public APIs. Bloch is the lead architect for the core JDK APIs where the classes and APIs have special security considerations. Several pieces of advice he gives apply absolutely to a public API where you want to defend the API from malicious code. However, if the code you are creating is intended for a less hostile and more trusting environment, fully following all of his advice will result in unnecessarily complex code. The one knock I give to the book is that Bloch does not delineate the circumstances that would dictate following his rather rigorous approach to bullet-proofing an API and can leave the reader with the mistaken perception that the advice applies equally to all categories of code. Overall, this is absolutely a must-have book for the experienced Java programmer. Even if you are not yet an advanced Java programmer, buy this book and keep revisiting it as you advance until everything in the book makes sense to you.

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