This book teaches how to develop Java applications at the professional level. It starts by showing how to code, test, and debug everyday business applications that won t crash. It presents object-oriented features like classes, inheritance, interfaces, and polymorphism in a way that s both understandable and useful in the real world...perspective that s often missing in Java training. It presents essential Java skills such as working with data types, control statements, arrays, collections, generics, enumerations, exceptions, threads, Swing components, applets, and text and binary files. It covers new Java SE 6 features such as new JDBC features, the StAX XML API, and the built-in Derby database. And it s all done in the distinctive Murach style that has been training professional programmers for more than 30 years.
One of the better reference books that I have. It does not cover specific Library classes as the Java in a Nutshell series did, but it does cover most likely encountered topics in a review fashion where an entire working snippet may be required. It is better organized than cookbook type references, but the examples are not as developed as the cookbook style collections.
It does function as a pretty handy first reference if the online API can't be referenced, and the full detail of meticulous API methods isn't desired.
For someone just learning this does a much better job of explaining what and why then many drawn out exotic textbooks on learning the Java syntax.