Book Review of the Month

Desktop Java Live
Scott Delap
Desktop Java Live by Scott Delap isn't your typical "how-to java book full of API references and JButtons. DJL is a pioneering book that teaches you how to write desktop applications using best practices and how to use a plethora of open source libraries to enhance and ease the development of applications.

Chapter One introduces you to desktop applications all over again. Scott talks about the shift from rich desktop apps to browser based applications over the past several years and how to determine if your application is right for the desktop.

Chapter 5 introduces you to the Event Dispatching Thread and discusses common threading pitfalls in Swing applications. Scott then shows you several different freely available APIs that have been made available to help Swing developers deal with threads more effectively. You can search the web for weeks and not find the culmination of useful information available in this single chapter of Scott's book

Coming up are chapters on Java WebStart, Installers, Obfuscators, and Testing. Scott writes in a way that that is easy to follow and understand but does not water down the topics. Scott knows what he is talking about and that shows throughout the book. If you've never written a Swing application this book won't explain how to do that. But if you are even remotely familiar with how to develop Swing applications this book will help your next application be the best it can be.

(Gregg Bolinger - Sheriff, August 2005)
More info at Amazon.com || More info at Amazon.co.uk


Other books reviewed in August :

Pro Hibernate 3 by Dave Minter, Leff Linwood
Succeeding with Use Cases: Working Smart to Deliver Quality by Richard Denney
Five Core Metrics by Lawrence H. Putnam, Ware Myers
Beginning J2ME: From Novice to Professional by Jonathan Knudsen, Sing Li
Maven - A Developer's Notebook by Vincent Massol, Timothy M. O'Brien
SSL VPN - Understanding, evaluating and planning secure, web-based remote access by J. Steinberg, T. Speed
Spring into PHP 5 by Steven Holzner
Mac OS X Tiger Unleashed by John Ray, William C. Ray
Nokia Smartphone Hacks by Michael Junato Yuan
Java Puzzlers : Traps, Pitfalls, and Corner Cases by Joshua Bloch, Neal Gafter