Computer Nerds! Recommend me a good Java and C books

[Carl.B]

Anyone have some favorite programming books? I don't need the books that start you off with 'Hello World' but a book that is logically laid out and with good sample code. I have been a old mainframe programmer but have done some VB, Java and C programming too.

As my current contracting position is ending soon I may need to brush up on my skills. I have been doing more project management type work and less and less programming but I want to keep that option open too.

So any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks

Carl B

[triodecr]

Check out the Murach's series of books. I came across them on Amazon and decided to give one a try after reading the reviews of their books and reviews of the competition. I've used one of their VB.net books and liked it quite a bit. I haven't explored their Java or C books though.

Clint

[BlueRedWhite]

Hi Carl:

I really like the Deitel's How to Program...whatever the language.

Hubby and I used it to learn various languages, is funny, easy and with great examples.

The Head First Series is also great.

we used it for Patterns

Now..there's a guy here who even wrote a chapter on COM programming on the SAMs series, a few years ago.

If you're looking for more formal education, he would be the guy

He's the best OOD teacher i know

and one hell of a software architect.

Shout to Zorrow...don't be a sissy and share the goodies

[Tres Aardvarks]

Been a long time since I went out and got a book for a new language, but the Deitel's are pretty good to get started with. I used to grab the O'Reilly "in a nutshell" books as a reference too.

[Carl.B]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations! Mostly what I need the books for are syntax and what libraries to call or properties to use.

[Tres Aardvarks]

Thanks everyone for the recommendations! Mostly what I need the books for are syntax and what libraries to call or properties to use.

When I had to learn Objective C (for iOS and OS X projects) I didn't even bother with a book. Went online and worked through some tutorials. Given what you are looking for, that may be a valid approach.

[velorush]

That's what I've been doing to pick up Python. Lots of free tutorials out there to promote usage.

[veatch]

There are plenty of good C books out there that will cover the tutorial style, but the reference i always go back to is Kernighan and Ritchie (might have the spelling wrong). I think it's called simply "C Programming Language". Covers the essentials, and is straight to the point. Not a good book for a non-programmer, but for someone with your experience, it might be more what yer looking for. Covers the essentials, and it's only a few hundred pages - not one of those 700 page monsters that dedicates a chapter to printf().

While yer at it, you might want to poke around C++ as well - If you already have an OOP background, the book i'd recommend is the Annotated Reference Manual by Ellis and Stroustroup (again, can't recall the spelling for sure). Again, not a monster long tutorial, just a solid reference on the essentials.

And: Good luck, sir! I admire the motivation! The most i poke my grubby hands on these days is an occasional bourne script or perl. Can't honestly remember the last time i ran a make...

ETA: I've been out of the hands on part of development for going on 20 years, so hopefully these books are still in print.

[sixesandsevens]

There are plenty of good C books out there that will cover the tutorial style, but the reference i always go back to is Kernighan and Ritchie (might have the spelling wrong). I think it's called simply "C Programming Language". Covers the essentials, and is straight to the point. Not a good book for a non-programmer, but for someone with your experience, it might be more what yer looking for. Covers the essentials, and it's only a few hundred pages - not one of those 700 page monsters that dedicates a chapter to printf().While yer at it, you might want to poke around C++ as well - If you already have an OOP background, the book i'd recommend is the Annotated Reference Manual by Ellis and Stroustroup (again, can't recall the spelling for sure). Again, not a monster long tutorial, just a solid reference on the essentials.And: Good luck, sir! I admire the motivation! The most i poke my grubby hands on these days is an occasional bourne script or perl. Can't honestly remember the last time i ran a make...

If what you want is the syntax, K&R is about as slim as you'll find without just reading the BNF grammar. There's more to it now with C99, I think, but I'm behind on that stuff.

Come to think of it, I have no idea if there's a standard set of libraries to learn beyond what's listed in man 2 and man 3C.

[killerteddybear]

I've had pretty good results with O'Reilly Media's "Missing Manual" series of books.

[lang]

There are plenty of good C books out there that will cover the tutorial style, but the reference i always go back to is Kernighan and Ritchie (might have the spelling wrong). I think it's called simply "C Programming Language". Covers the essentials, and is straight to the point. Not a good book for a non-programmer, but for someone with your experience, it might be more what yer looking for. Covers the essentials, and it's only a few hundred pages - not one of those 700 page monsters that dedicates a chapter to printf().

I consider "The C Programming language" to be one of the classics. Outstanding and highly recommended. The Stroustrup C++ book, not so much, IMO. The best C++ book I've read is: "Effective C++" by Scott Myers, however it's targeted at someone who has already been exposed to the basics of the language. With that said though, I'm done with C++. There are just too many better alternatives out there now.

Other outstanding language References: Programming Ruby (The Pickaxe book), Programming in Scala. Both are _beautiful_ languages. It's not too much of a jump to think of Ruby as a "better Perl" and Scala as a "better Java". I feel slightly guilty leaving "Programming Perl" (The Camel book) off this list, because it's certainly a classic as well, but I just can't in good conscience recommend learning Perl when you could be learning Ruby or Python or Scala instead.

The cool thing about Scala is that even though it "feels" like a dynamic language when you write it, it's statically typed, and actually runs on top of the Java virtual machine, so you have access to all the "Java" libraries as well. It's my personal favorite, but it probably has a higher barrier of entry than, say Ruby or Python since it really requires a working knowledge of Java first.

I've also recently had the chance to do some programming in C#, which has really become a beautiful language as well. I was very impressed with it. "C# in depth" looks like a good book, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I personally feel like JavaScript has recently really started to come into it's own as well, with the arrival of stuff like Angular.js and Node.js. If you're considering JavaScript, then you probably want: "JavaScript: The Good Parts"

Do you have decided which language you want to learn / what kind of software you're interested in developing? Best of luck!

[Tres Aardvarks]

I personally feel like JavaScript has recently really started to come into it's own as well, with the arrival of stuff like Angular.js and Node.js. If you're considering JavaScript, then you probably want: "JavaScript: The Good Parts"

Javascript is taking off even more with so many companies using it for their cloud based approach. My biggest issue with JS is not having a compile time check, and a lack of a robust debugger. I know some groups have built tools to try and address this, but since my use of it is sporadic (the bulk of our work is still C++) I haven't spent the time to get it dialed in.

[lang]

I personally feel like JavaScript has recently really started to come into it's own as well, with the arrival of stuff like Angular.js and Node.js. If you're considering JavaScript, then you probably want: "JavaScript: The Good Parts"

Javascript is taking off even more with so many companies using it for their cloud based approach. My biggest issue with JS is not having a compile time check, and a lack of a robust debugger. I know some groups have built tools to try and address this, but since my use of it is sporadic (the bulk of our work is still C++) I haven't spent the time to get it dialed in.

I haven't had much of a chance to work with them, but there are a couple options for JavaScript debugging that seem reasonably mature: In Firefox, you can get the "FireBug" extension, and Chrome has "DevTools" built in: ( From the Settings Menu: Tools->Developer Tools (Sources Tab) ). Still, I sympathize with your reluctance to use a dynamic / interpreted language for a "real" app. It's much better to catch any errors you can at compile time vs runtime. For what it's worth though, it seems that JavaScript actually is compiled behind the scenes (by Chrome and Firefox at least).

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/138521/is-javascript-interpreted-by-design

[Carl.B]

I will do some review tonight of everyone's recommendations and I will checkout the online tutorials too.

The HFC has the best people.

Carl B.

[Tres Aardvarks]

I haven't had much of a chance to work with them, but there are a couple options for JavaScript debugging that seem reasonably mature: In Firefox, you can get the "FireBug" extension, and Chrome has "DevTools" built in: ( From the Settings Menu: Tools->Developer Tools (Sources Tab) ). Still, I sympathize with your reluctance to use a dynamic / interpreted language for a "real" app. It's much better to catch any errors you can at compile time vs runtime. For what it's worth though, it seems that JavaScript actually is compiled behind the scenes (by Chrome and Firefox at least).

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/138521/is-javascript-interpreted-by-design

Yep, I use Chrome's DevTools quite a bit for our cloud product. However, our other product which uses JS generates 3D PDFs. It is built with C++, and uses either external JS files or JS functions built as C++ strings which are then inserted into the PDF. Acrobat has a debugger, but to have to build the project, run, and open the PDF is a drag (when a lot of errors could be caught at compile time).

[gorch]

It's freightening to realize that I'm out of the theme.

[sixesandsevens]

I personally feel like JavaScript has recently really started to come into it's own as well, with the arrival of stuff like Angular.js and Node.js. If you're considering JavaScript, then you probably want: "JavaScript: The Good Parts"

Javascript is taking off even more with so many companies using it for their cloud based approach. My biggest issue with JS is not having a compile time check, and a lack of a robust debugger. I know some groups have built tools to try and address this, but since my use of it is sporadic (the bulk of our work is still C++) I haven't spent the time to get it dialed in.

Still, I sympathize with your reluctance to use a dynamic / interpreted language for a "real" app. It's much better to catch any errors you can at compile time vs runtime. For what it's worth though, it seems that JavaScript actually is compiled behind the scenes (by Chrome and Firefox at least).

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/138521/is-javascript-interpreted-by-design

Unfortunately "compiled" and "statically typed" aren't the same thing. My guess is that javascript still has a very dynamic sense of "object" even in its compiled form since there's no type definitions to check against.

I'm impressed that scala has type inference. After learning about type inference in standard ML over 15 years ago (and it was old news then), I've been amazed that it's taken so many years to gain a foothold anywhere.

However, our other product which uses JS generates 3D PDFs. It is built with C++, and uses either external JS files or JS functions built as C++ strings which are then inserted into the PDF. Acrobat has a debugger, but to have to build the project, run, and open the PDF is a drag (when a lot of errors could be caught at compile time).

Yeah... For the folks that actually embed javascript in the way it was "originally intended", I imagine the toolchain support is more or less DIY.

On the up side, it sounds like you're doing some cool stuff though (the joy of generating javascript templates in C++ strings not withstanding).

Carl B. - lang's original post gave me pause for a minute... If you want to brush up on C, java, and VB, that's fine... but if you're considering going after a specific type of gig, consider looking at what's being used in that segment and focusing on that. Most of the principles will transfer, of course, but it may lead you towards something else, like scala, python, ruby, clojure, etc. (and that's just the "hip" ones!)