Review by Billy Barron

"Inside Java Workshop" (Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-858234-3) by Weaver and Jervis is a unique book. It is the first book I've read written by the people who wrote an IDE where they explain the reasoning behind their product design decisions. This gives invaluable insight into why Java Workshop works the way it does which should help the productivity of any serious Java developmer who uses Java Workshop for their IDE.

However, the bulk of the book is actually a how to book for Java Workshop. Personally, I am the kind of person who usually jumps into an IDE and bashes around until I figure it out so I'm probably not the best person to evaluate the how to portion of this book. The parts I skimmed seem well written and clear.

If you are using Java Workshop, then this is a pretty good book to get. If you are thinking about evaluating Java Workshop, you may just want to skim the first couple of chapters of this book in the book store to get a feel for Java Workshop before trying it out. If you decide you are going with Java Workshop after the evaluation, then go back to the bookstore and pick it up.