A Back to Basics Approach (4th Edition) - Building Java Programs

Access code does not provide access to MyProgrammingLab. Only the etext. Also the Pearson portal for MPL is fickle, and does not allow login with correct username/password input. I most likely will have to pay $93 for the MPL access code through Pearson. Should have just bought this new at the bookstore.

I bought the book with the intention that it would help me understand / learn java better.
The book is too basic and more descriptive in words. The book, I feel is not directed towards helping the reader understand programs and how they are structured. Questions are there is all books for practice but help understand Java through multiple programs. Maybe I selected the wrong book. Maybe I know more and expect a higher standard. I am will sell this book and buy another one.

This book is almost unreadable because of all the missing words and sentences. It is simply atrocious. Probably 15% of the words are missing from this novel. Every single page will have at least 9-12 words missing, sometimes half of a sentence or more. It really makes enjoying this book and learning Java difficult. Even the short introduction is hard to comprehend because of all the missing words.

It is seriously almost painful to read. Whole words are missing, words and phrases are truncated, descriptive verbs are simply not there... you have to GUESS at what the author meant in that phrase in that particular position in the descriptions. Seriously, it's almost as if the book editing was performed by someone who had almost zero understanding of the English language.

Written by someone who doesn't enjoy giving good examples of how to complete operations, or analogies that help with the understanding of a topic. You're better off with referring to YouTube and buying a Java coding book at a quarter of the price.

I bought 3 books recently ( Kindle version) "Building Java Program" is the worst of all.
1. Text are very fuzzy and faint.
2. It doesn't have "Color mode" feature to change color and resolution.
3. Page navigation has big problem
4. Display half page at a time so you need to scroll down every time you done with reading visible portion to get next contents.
5. Changing size or Zoom feature doesn't help

Just like any college student, I went onto the store to see if anyone was selling the same textbook for a cheaper price. As you guessed the answer is yes! The book arrived as desired, with a minor twist; the store listed the textbook with a hard cover. Fortunately, the seller (worleygoodstuff) immediately contacted me telling me that the book was actually paperback. That aside, everything else was as described.

Shipping took 6 days (standard shipping).

The textbook arrived in the described condition: brand new with the online access code still in its unused condition. None of the pages were marked, no pages were dog-eared, or torn. In essence, there were no signs that the book was used, which is as expected since the seller described it as new.

Overall, I am very content with the seller. I can't say too much about the textbook just yet since classes have not started. I will report back when I get the chance to use the textbook thoroughly.

Ordered a new version of the book. It arrived shrink-wrapped with the MyProgrammingLab code. The inside is clean and there appear to be no markings on the pages, however the outside cover was creased when it arrived. I'm not quite sure how it creased while shrink-wrapped and covered in cardboard.

It'll work, but i would rather receive a mint condition book when I buy new.

I downloaded a kindle version of this earlier today and have wasted over 90 minutes trying to get access to the publishers companion web resources managed Pearson. NEVER had such a poorly designed and useless process to undergo. Stay far away!

gets weierder with this clueless response from pearson support

Nancy, obviously you aren't "working" on my issue since you don't seem to have a clue about the actual issue. it's all in this thread so all you need to do is read it. i bought one of your text books from the store. downloaded it and have been - without an iota of success - to access the additional material referenced in the book: sample code, video tips, etc. It's been a waste of time to try and access support as this email demonstrates.

tell me how to access the material successfully and we're done. Why do you need to work on that for a week? BTW another student complained about the sqme issue on the store so you must be working on that too. I'm going to complain to the store next.

On Friday, September 2, 2011, Pearson Customer Technical Support wrote:
>
> Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response.
>
> We are continuing to work on your issue. If you have more information, update your question here: <[...]>
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> Subject
> Worst experience
>
> Discussion Thread
> Response Via Email (Nancy)09/02/2011 07:51 PM
> Dear Susan Zellmann-rohrer,
>
> Thank you for contacting Pearson Education Customer Technical Support.
>
> We are sorry that you are experiencing difficulties while registering for our website.
>
> In order to assist you further, please provide us with the following information:
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> 1. Access code:
> Note:The access code will be in a format like this PSBAT-GEORG-THOLE-PICON-HARRY-LOBBY
>
> 2. Exact error message(If any):
>
> 3. The website of the URL([...]) you are trying to register:
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> 4. Exact title,author and the ISBN of the textbook you are trying to register:
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> 5. Course ID(If any):
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> Should you experience additional problems relating to this issue, feel free to reply to this message so we may assist you further.
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> For your convenience, visit our 24/7 website for technical assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at [...] For help using our web site, view the video at [...]
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> Thank you again for contacting Pearson Education Customer Technical Support.
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> Sincerely,
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> Nancy
> Pearson 24/7 Technical Support
> Customer By Email (Susan Zellmann-rohrer)08/28/2011 11:29 AM
> Hey, don't break a sweat on my behalf but wait, clearly you don't do that ever thus the terrible registration, customer service, chat and faq experience. guess students aren't your audience.
>
> On Sunday, August 28, 2011, Pearson Customer Technical Support [email protected] wrote:
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> Your question has been received. You should expect a response from us within 24 hours.
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> To access your question from our support site, click here.
> [...]
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> Discussion Thread
> Customer By Web Form (Susan Zellmann-rohrer)08/28/2011 10:35 AM
> Just purchased java text book from the store and have spent +60 minutes in a ridiculous waste of time trying to register. I will register my huge disappointment on the store with your terrible processes. Clean up your act.
> Customer By Web Form (Susan Zellmann-rohrer)08/28/2011 10:35 AM
> Just purchased java text book from the store and have spent +60 minutes in a ridiculous waste of time trying to register. I will register my huge disappointment on the store with your terrible processes. Clean up your act.
>
> [---001:002168:21407---]

I've never come across a textbook that layers ideas so strategically and ingeniously well. The ideas are presented in an order and in a manner that made it impossible for me to get lost or bored. Let me repeat that: I was neither lost nor bored--ever!

I'm convinced that any interested and diligent newbie can produce clean, delightful solutions in simple Java by learning from this book. It taught so well, I couldn't wait to get my hands on problem after problem. It made me crave problem solving and writing clean, inventive, non-redundant, well-commented code. The book holds your hand aggressively...I don't think I could have learned as much if the book were any less challenging or any less background-info-laden. The whole book is nicely and neatly designed and formatted, as well.

I'm a generalist in IT (system administration and desktop support) and don't have any programming training. I took a class in Java just to learn some basics. This book was very easy to follow while still being challenging enough to really learn something. When I was doing my class assignments, I would definitely have the book open and reference it often because it was a good resource (as opposed to some classes where you rarely crack the book).

I can't speak to the approach the authors take due to my lack of sophistication when it comes to programming, but as a beginning student in programming it was quite helpful.

Java, and any other programming language, is a difficult subject to learn, especially if one has little or no experience in the field. However, this book takes you step by step and shows you how to effectively build programs.

It starts with making small programs using arrays, loops, etc... and really makes sure that you understand the basic functions of java before moving on to more complicated topics.

From a students point of view, it is very straightforward, and the book moves smoothly from one chapter to the next. All the material builds on each other, and the material in each chapter is taught very thoroughly.

Overall an A+++.

This book offers an amazingly straight forward, no non-sense approach to Java. But more than that, it builds best practices into people early. When I took the classes (intro to CS 1/2) that used this book, I took for granted that I was learning about HashMaps, Binary Trees, etc. To this day when I need to refresh on a bit of Java, I turn to this book. I would literally recommend this book for anyone in any stage of their education, or even after. Easily the best textbook I had throughout my computer science degree.

The dominant approach to teaching Java is to start with objects as early as possible - the object first approach. If this is what you want, then this is not the right book. However, I believe that a growing number of people, myself included, have come to believe that object first doesn't work. Since OO is primarily a design and organization approach for building large systems it typically does not make sense to students trying to do one or two page introductory projects. In addition, the time taken in trying to explain objects comes out of time that would have been spent in learning programming basics such as loops, arrays, etc. The result is too many students that can't write good procedural code, as well as never grasping object.

Due to this problem, I have chosen to organize my classes to begin with a procedural style of programming (focused on loops and arrays) and introduce OO at the beginning of the second semester. One of my frustrations has been a lack of supporting material for this approach, particularly among introductory Java textbooks.

This book solves this problem for me. It introduces concepts in almost exactly the order I have decided to use in my courses. The book is well written. It has a modern organization in terms of things like sidebars and its graphic design without going overboard and trying to compete with MTV the way the Head First series does, or by putting in a bunch of expensive color pictures that have nothing to do with the subject as many current textbooks do. In short, the book design matches its subtitle of being "a back to basics approach".

The authors have chosen to avoid showing a specific IDE and limit graphics to an optional chapter. I approve of both of these choices. I find that teaching IDE's, such as BlueJ, leave students confused about what the tool does and what the programming language does. While full IDE's, such as Eclipse, overwhelm first semester students. Graphics are "sexy" but every library is different. Real world libraries, like Swing, are too complicated for first semester students. Teaching libraries make the students learn something that is promptly thrown away. I, like the authors, would rather put the effort into the basics of programming.

This brings us to the book's other strengths - well thought out examples and assignments that use the basic portion of the language (and could be used with practically any language). A series of character graphic examples are presented that do a good job of showing ideas such as repetition, and functional decomposition. They also include many good "case studies" that show how to apply the techniques introduced in the chapter to a "large" (for first semester) programming problem that is related to real world concepts. For example, one early case study calculates body mass index (fat to weight ratio) of a person. Their case study examples are definitely better then what I am usually able to come up with on the fly, which I think is a key reason to even bother with a text book.

Summary: I believe this book delivers on its title. It is a well written book that focuses on the basics of learning a programming language without getting lost among "hot" topics like OO, IDE's, or GUI's. I will be switching my classes to this book.

I took two computer science classes that were based around this book, and having glanced through several other programming books and other tutorials, I would say that this book has probably the most logical structure, the most fluid explanations, and overall a format that is easy to follow, without dumbing itself down.

The book achieves, which I believe others do not, a way of demonstrating how code works, rather than just showing code that works. The book is not even based on example code - in fact, it feels like it is written in such a way, that I could have easily picked up the book in my spare time, and learned the majority of the class contents simply by reading it cover to cover. Most programming books I have looked at are otherwise filled with unnecessary examples which are hard to follow, and some incoherent explanations.

Aside from being well-structured and coherent, there are also several resources included with the book. For example, each chapter culminates with a series of example problems. While they are not entirely a necessity to ones' understanding, they are good for those who wish to have a deeper understanding of the topics presented. Furthermore, the book was very well-synchronized with the slides presented in class, which are designed to coincide with the contents of the book. Overall, while both the class and the book were great, I would say that the book was an important part in making programming a topic that I could grasp easily.

Far too often, textbooks and teachers alike delve into interesting aspects of course content before building a solid foundation to learn on top of. This seems to be especially prominent in Computer Science courses, which is unfortunate for those who have no past experience in programming. This book, as the title implies, goes back to basics, building a foundation for successive lessons without overloading the reader with too much too fast.

Having recently taken a CS1 equivalent course that uses this book as the basis for the course material, and TA-ing said course, I can say without a doubt that this book helps students understand the material. The layout of each chapter allows incremental learning, and lets the reader quickly attain information that is useful, such as practice problems, notes about common programming pitfalls, code snippets that demonstrate key concepts, etc. As absurd as it may seem to praise a book for something so fundamental such as practice problems, the truth is many textbooks do this extremely poorly, and as a current undergrad who has read several poorly written textbooks, reading "Building Java Programs" is like a breath of fresh air.

The content and flow of topics is, in my opinion, perfection. Before touching the innards of an object, the reader becomes strong at procedural programming, and should understand the need for objects. Since the reader has used some Java classes in previous chapters, by mid book, it is very possible to be properly introduced and talk about implementation details. Towards the end of the book, the authors explore sorting and searching, which I feel are important to know as early as CS2 (pre-data structures and algorithms) since many students do not continue with Computer Science after CS2, but still need the programming skills.

This book does a great job of presenting the material for a CS1/CS2 in a logical and clear manner, with wonderful explanations and examples.

I am a student at the University of Washington, and have just finished an introductory programming course taught by one of the co-authors of this text. Having no prior experience in computer programming, I can't necessarily compare the effectiveness of Stepp and Reges' method of presenting introductory programming topics; however, after finishing the course, I feel like I have a strong grasp on the methodology and fundamentals that go into writing programs, which is strongly due to simpler topics like array manipulation and if/else statements being introduced first, and expanded on pretty elaborately.

The text has very straightforward explanations, and encourages mastery of the topic at hand before the reader moves on. The examples at the end of each chapter range from very simple checks on understanding to fairly complicated problems with practical applications, (IE computing stats like standard deviation, etc.)

I recommend this book as a good supplement to any introductory programming course, but moreover I recommend it for its structure. I feel that introducing the fundamentals of algorithmic thinking before the nuanced manipulation of objects was the reason I was successful in the course, and why I feel comfortable moving on to more object-focused programming classes.

Before taking the class instructed by Marty Stepp, I had no prior programming experience whatsoever. Using the fact that the book contained Marty's lectures summed-up almost word for word, this is a great way to learn programming. We started with writing methods in a main class and didn't worry about the complicated stuff involving objects until later in the quarter. This gave us a good feel of how computers take and use the information we gave them to accomplish small tasks, as well as insight into what other applications programming could be applied to.

Let me say that from my personal experience, this class was crucial in determining my major. I'm a freshman and I was planning on majoring in Computer Engineering at the UW. However, with no programming or much technical experience, I was on edge whether or not I would stick with CE. However, after taking the course and enjoying it, I believe CE would be more than likely in the future for me.

Introductory programming textbooks have a tendency to be either too simplistic (and thus boring), or use too much jargon in the hopes of a full-immersion experience, which (in my opinion) ends up with too much lost on the reader, and ends up being too boring as well. Building Java Programs balances this *perfectly*, being enjoyable to read as a textbook (which is really saying something) and having useful and fast access as a reference book. In addition, having used this in class to learn programming for the first time, I found the provided exercises perfect for learning new concepts. Awesome book!

This book was absolutely perfect for it's intended purpose. I've taken other classes in other language, namely C++ and between the two books this was a hands-down winner. The "thumbs down" code and the easy to understand examples made this book such an easy yet informative read. As a student I can safely say that this book did exactly what it promised, teach me the basics of Java programming. It wasn't hard to get through either, like some other textbooks tend to be, the language was simple and appropriate for the most novice of programmers. I also think that the examples were so interested and fun that it encouraged me to do some of them, even the ones that weren't assigned!

This book helped me tremendously through my intro to Java courses! I went into the first day of class with no knowledge of Java, but the book explains a lot of the concepts very well. The lectures by Marty were very good at summarizing the contents of the book, but due to the time limitation, not everything can be covered in class, but the book wrapped up everything that could not be covered in class very well. Also, the supplementary website that goes along with the book (i.e. Practice-It) helped me prepared for exams, and provided a lot of short, challenging programming problems that were essential in understanding the mechanism of different data structures in Java. The way the concepts are presented in the book made me smile a lot - there are a lot of funny examples in the book, just very entertaining to read through! This is a must-have for Java beginners!

This book is amazing clear. I am currently taking my second Java class with this book and never cease to be amazed by its good examples. It rarely makes jumps in logic that I can not follow. It has plenty of practice problems with answers in the back. It also has exercises which do not have solutions in the back. The included videos on the CD provide another explanation when you are trying to get you head wrapped around a difficult concept.

Used this textbook at the University of Washington for the two quarter Introduction to Java series (CSE 142/143)

This book was excellent. It explains everything so simply that you almost don't have to go to class!(though we all know you should)

It is clear and concise with informative examples that really help you learn the material. Most impressive is the fact that it maintains its readability throughout. Even when discussing more complicated topics like linked list operations and recursion, everything is presented without secrets.

If this book was any better, it would just do the Java for you.

There are a lot of programming books out there and most of them suck. They aren't easy to follow and the explanations are not straight forward. This book on the other hand is written in a way that is easy for someone who has never programmed before to pick up and understand. The examples are easy to follow and the reading isn't dry. This is the best programming book that I have ever read and I have read a few. If you are learning Java do yourself a favor and pick this one up!

I am using this book for a college programming class. I had never programmed before and had no previous knowledge about programming. I'm only on the third chapter but it makes so much sense. They clearly explain everything with detailed examples and potential pitfalls. Its extremely readable and a better teacher than my professor. So far this book has been wonderful!

This book is extensive in the material it covers and examples it gives, very helpful. However if you're taking 142/143 you really don't *need* to buy it. Personally I found that I never had to use the textbook. You only need it for the homework problems - it's worth saving your money and asking to borrow someones book to get the questions once a week.

I used this book for the two corresponding courses at my university and found that this book perfectly accompanies introductory courses and allows students to fill in what they may have missed in lecture. I haven't seen a single thing wrong with this textbook, and I wish my other textbooks allowed learning to be so easy.

I am currently taking a class that has this book. The book gives you general ideas. When you try to do the exercises I feel like I am not equipped to finish some of the exercises. I am a very hard worker and this takes hours upon hours to complete the exercises. I even bought the access to get the videos, which were about as helpful as reading the text book. Once again the videos are as helpful as this terrible vague book.

I never write reviews, so this really means something for me to be so frustrated to actually write a review. Please excuse my terrible grammar.

Don't let this book think you cannot program like a champion. I can't wait for this semester to be over.

best wishes.

I changed to this book for my Java Programming class (high school) and found it more difficult for the students to catch on. I used Java: How to Program by Deitel and this book was worth the money and the students enjoyed it better.

The difference between the first and second edition is that the second edition has a few sections removed from it that were included in the first. If you are taking CSE 142, just buy a used 1st edition, it will save you a lot of money. Since Mart Stepp was unable to effectively teach the fence post process, it was removed.

This book's pages, finish, ink, or toner - whatever it was that was used to produce the blue colors in the text - it would bleed when I put my fingers on it, and smudge horridly.

Oh, and as a Java text, it definitely should have explained things in step-by-step, diagram format better.