Review by Billy Barron

"Java 2 and JavaScript for C and C++ Programmers" (Wiley Computer Publishing; ISBN 0-471-32719-0) by Daconta, Saganich, and Monk is a book designed to take C and C++ programmers and turn them into Java programmers. Therefore, the book skips over a lot of the basic syntax that other learning Java books go through.

Now, when you look at the book, you wonder why it is still so thick when so much material was skipped. The reason is that this book goes much deeper into Java than any other learning Java book I have seen. The book covers advanced topics like JavaBeans, RMI, Security, JDBC, references, package versioning, drap and drop, servlets, internationalization, COM, Media, and CORBA. Interestingly enough, some of the topics, like references, I have not yet seen covered in any other Java book at all.

JavaScript is just covered in a couple of chapters at the end of the book. This section seems tacked on to me. However, one of the two chapters does cover integrating Java and JavaScript together, which could be useful for people working on web-based Java projects.

If you are learning Java, already know C or C++, and want to only buy one book for learning purposes, this book might be the one for you since it will get you through the basics as well as much advanced material. Even experienced Java programmers may want to consider this book as it covers many new Java 2 topics that I haven't seen covered in another other book.