Review of "Java for Programmers" by Douglas Lyon

Carl Weiman, Ph. D., reviewer

This new book spans all the novel and valuable features of Java Technology, such as OOP and built-in web functionality, in a clear, head-on fashion. Professor Lyon?s crisp writing style and clear examples carry the reader to the heart of Java and implant the concepts firmly in the programmer?s mind.

The unabashed use of the word ?Programmers? (rather than, for example, ?Software Engineers?) in the title of Professor Lyon?s book is a refreshing admission that, after all, software is created by programmers. The recent emergence of extreme programming (XP) has spurred a quantum leap in programmer productivity, a factor which makes the programmer and this book additionally important. Consider the analogy of programmer to mountaineer, where the project corresponds to a mountain. In scaling the peaks of project development, XP facilitates leaps from crag to crag rather than foothold to foothold. The programmer utilizes chasm-spanning shortcuts to the summit of project completion. Java for Programmers gives today?s programmer seven league boots in the form of easy to understand code modules which scale to professional use in web, network, database, graphical, GUI, and XML applications.

All too often, introductory programming language books give simple classroom examples which dumb down the language, and cram business logic and GUI into the same class. Dr. Lyon?s extensive professional and pedagogical experience shine in his avoidance of such examples by providing strong design-pattern classes which are simple enough to comprehend immediately and scalable to commercial applications. This is the clearest book I have seen for introducing both novices and experienced professionals to Java. Java for Programmers is a must-use for teachers of Java at all levels and for professional developers in any field of application that uses Java.