Find the Best Java Book for Absolute Beginners

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i.mehrzad
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A good book please??

I am intersted in learning java, but am an absolute illeterate in this matter. Can someone tell me a starting point with regard to this.
I want to do java out of sheer interest and nothing else. Can someone guide me.
 
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i.mehrzad said:
I am intersted in learning java, but am an absolute illeterate in this matter. Can someone tell me a starting point with regard to this.
I want to do java out of sheer interest and nothing else. Can someone guide me.

Glad to see you are interested in Java. I would go to a library and pick up at least 5 books on the subject, read one chapter from each book and go with the one that is the most clear and readable for me.

My recommendations are

[1]Big Java, one of my all time favorite book on Java
[2]Head First Java, it is a fine book

for the rest of beginning books I cannot say I haven't read them.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470105542/?tag=pfamazon01-20
[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596009208/?tag=pfamazon01-20
 
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I bought several books some years ago about java, javabeans, ...
I read none of them.
Instead, I used the compiler I had chosen, the help files and the javadoc files of the class hierarchy.
An hands-on approach was the best one.

Since then, I decided never to buy IT books anymore.
 
Ivor Horton's "Beginning Java 2" is well written, IMO.
 
I like books from Michael Main.

I hate cay horstmann, so id stay away.but i think the best way to to take the hello world class and edit from there, make changes and stuff and just read online, then compile and go from there, i would also uses eclipse as your ide http://www.eclipse.org/
Code:
class Helloworld{  

        public static void main(String args[]) {
           System.out.println("Hello World!");
        }
}
 
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Since i am in India my Exposure to International Editions of Books is fairly limited. The ones that i have down here are only the low priced Editions of books.
Also i am an absolute beginner and don't even know what programming is.
So please could someone now recommend me a book.
 
We just recommended you some books.

In my library I see on a lot of books with "Not for sale in the USA" tags but that doesn't mean they are defects.

If you don't like cheap books maybe you can try eBooks. I believe that Thinking In Java 3rd Edition is a free - you can legally copy it from here http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/, fell free to Google around.

Also I found this site's textbook to be written nicely but it looks a bit unfinished
http://www.cs101.org/

Llama77, what is wrong with Horstmann? I would like somebody like that to teach programming at my University.
 
Im just not a fan of his style, I own about 8 of his books and didnt learn much from any.
 
You can check this out.. its free...

www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101[/URL]

and this

[PLAIN]http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs1101l/

the first website has lecture notes, tutorials etc and the second one has labs and exercises to practice on...
 
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Llama77 said:
Im just not a fan of his style, I own about 8 of his books and didnt learn much from any.

Sorry but I just can't help not to comment: Why did you buy 8 books if you don't like the style of the books?

Except for Core Java they are pretty expensive too.
 
haki said:
Sorry but I just can't help not to comment: Why did you buy 8 books if you don't like the style of the books?

Except for Core Java they are pretty expensive too.

Because I get tech books for free,