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Understanding Object-Oriented Programming with Java by Budd Recommended

ISBN: 0 201 30881 9       Publisher: Addison-Wesley       Pages: 367pp       Price: £28-99

Categories:   object oriented     java

Reviewed by Bryan Scattergood in C Vu 11-1 (Nov 1998)

The OOP aspects of this book are excellent, from the early discussions of coupling and cohesion, through an exemplary comparison between inheritance and composition, to an exhaustive classification of the various forms of polymorphism. There is even an introduction to Design Patterns.

The Java used is current for version 1.1, with discussion of both inner classes and their use with the new AWT event model, and there are good chapters on the basic Java libraries including input/output streams, graphics, collection classes, and AWT. Applets are covered in seven pages in the last chapter.

The choice of examples is again good, with substantial cannon, pinball and card games. Perhaps the weakest aspect of the book is the quality of the code in the examples, with static public data used to communicate between objects.

As Budd notes in the preface, This book will help you understand Java. It makes no pretensions to being a language reference manual. You will need a reference manual as well, but this book deserves a place on your shelves, especially if you are finding that understanding the concepts is the hardest part of learning OO.