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Book Review: Second Edition of “A Programmer’s Guide to Java Certification”

Updated 2/25/2007: Added amazon link.

I used “A Programmer’s Guide to Java Certification” as a study guide for achieving my Java Certified Programmer (JCP) status two years ago, so when I had the chance to review the second edition, I jumped at it (full disclosure: the publisher sent me the second edition to review). As I expected, I was again aghast and delighted at the level of detail, the exercises and the arrangement of this fine book.

Mughal and Rasmussen do a good job of covering all the nitty gritty details that the JCP requires one to know. Whether the length in bits of an int, the difference between overloading and overriding, or the order in which initializer expressions get executed, this book gives one enough detail to overwhelm the novice Java programmer, as well as cause those more experienced to scratch their heads and perhaps write a small program to verify what was read was valid. While this book lacks the discussion of I/O and the GUI of the previous edition (due to changes in the JCP test), it has a fine set of chapters on some of the fundamental libraries and classes. My two favorite explications are the chapter on Threads (Chapter 9), where that complicated subject is treated well enough to motivate more learning while not overwhelming the reader with detail, and the String and StringBuffer section of Chapter 10. So much of the Java programming I’ve done has been dealing with Strings, so this section, which covers the String class method by method and deals with issues of memory and performance as well as normal use, is very welcome.

The exercises were crucial to my passing the JCP, and they remain useful in this book. Grouped at the end of logical sections of chapters, they break up the text and re-iterate the lessons learned in the previous sections. The answers to these exercises are in the back of the book. Also, a full mock exam is included at the back, as well as an annotated version of the JCP exam requirements which serves as a study guide (both for the full JCP 1.4 and for the upgrade exam). Reading over the mock exam definitely let me know what areas I’d need to study if I was taking the JCP again. In short, the didactic nature of this book has not been lost.

The arrangement of this book is also useful. A fine index and the logical progression through the features of the Java language eases the onslaught of detailed information mentioned above. The extensive use of UML diagrams (especially class and sequence diagrams) was helpful as well. If one reads the book sequentially, one learns about how object references are declared (Chapter 4), then the various control structures available in Java (Chapter 5), then the basics of Object Orientation (Chapter 6), then the object life cycle (Chapter 8), in a very linear fashion. Additionally, there is extensive cross-referencing. This may not be useful to the novice programmer, but to anyone using this book as a reference, it’s invaluable, because it allows Mughal and Rasmussen to provide yet more logical linking of disparate topics.

However, this book is not for everyone. I wouldn’t buy it if I wanted to learn to program. While there are a few chapters that have general value (Chapter 1, Chapter 6), the emphasis on mastering idiomatic Java, not general programming concepts. Also, as they state in the preface, this is not a complete reference book for Java. It covers only what is needed for the JCP. Finally, if one wants to know how to use Java in the real world, don’t buy this book. While most of the java programming I’ve done has benefited from the understanding I gained from this book, it has not resembled the coding I did for the exercises at all. This makes sense–this book is teaching the fundamentals, and does not pretend to cover any of the higher level APIs and concepts that are used in everyday programming.
Link to this book on Amazon.