Java 7 New Features Cookbook - Book Review

This is a review of "Java 7 New Features Cookbook" book by Richard M. Reese, and Jennifer L. Reese (Packt Pub, 2012)

In short, a really decent book about Java 7, which could have been much better.

I can't say whether the list of Java 7 discussed within the book is complete, but by the amount of information I guess it is. The features are explained thoroughly, and you can learn a lot about each of them. This is the best thing about the book. It really explains features of Java 7.

The book starts with "Language Improvements" chapter, then there are 5 chapters devoted to different features related to files handling (in total more than 1/3 of the book). Next there are two chapters about the GUI improvements, one about database and security, one about concurrency, and then a "varia" chapter which gathers different things not explained in previous chapters.

Complaints

As I already mention, the book contains really a great deal of good information about the Java 7 features. Unfortunately, the way the book was prepared and published makes the reading experience less satisfactory. Which is really shame, because it could have been a really good book...

First of all, I would like to say few harsh words to someone responsible for code layout in the book. It often looks like this:

The other complaint is, that there seem to be general lack of care about the way the things are presented. Sometime, when using a table would be so very handy, the content is provided in textual form, which makes me flip from one page to another. This happens in many places, and I often had the feeling that "they don't really care about me". Which is rather a said thing to say.

What I also didn't like is that the book is more about presenting Java 7 features than about solving your problems (this is especially visible in files-related chapters). This is not what I expected when reading the "cookbook" in the book's title.

I will give you an example. Suppose you would like to delete a directory. So you take a book. And a surprise awaits you, because there are two sections devoted to this - one in chapter 4 and one in chapter 5. Wouldn't it be more helpful for a reader to gather it in one place and discuss all options giving some hints on when to use them? Probably, but as I told you before "they do not really care", so you have to read different sections, and there is not a single word about when/why you should use approach A or approach B (similarly there are two sections called "Managing symbolic links"). I find it really annoying. This is not a cookbook but rather a "list of Java 7 features with examples".

Similarly, take a look at the sections titles. Suppose you would like to learn how to find out about the free disk space. Good luck! You can go through the titles of all 5 chapters and numerous section devoted to files/directories and you won't find it. Because it is hidden in "Getting FileStore information". I told you, the book is about Java 7 features, not about helping you solve your problems.

P.S. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I'm getting old an grumpy, and these are not real issues, because everyone can scan the book himself and know about its content, so stupid sections names won't hurt, and you can also merge information about deleting directories yourself and make your own decisions... Oh yeah, sure.

Conclusion

Concluding I can only say what i have already said: this book gives you all the important information but...

Links

I just bought this book, and

I just bought this book, and indeed, it contains all the important information for Java 7, but still it's some introduction book and doesn't go deep enough. - pain in left side I hope there are another book for diving into Java 7.
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