| JUST RELEASED!!! | NEW!!! | ||||||
| My Books: |  |
Beginning Java Objects, 2nd Ed. | |
Beginning C# Objects |
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Taming the Technology Tidal Wave | |
| (with Grant Palmer) | Practical Career Advice for IT Professionals |
I'm a professional software engineer and an adjunct professor of object/Java technology. Time and again, I meet software developers -- at my place of employment; at clients' offices; at professional conferences; on college campuses -- who have attempted to master an OO programming language like Java by taking a course in Java, or by reading a book in Java, or by acquiring and using a Java integrated development environment (IDE) tool such as Sun One Studio or JBuilder. However, there is something fundamentally missing: a basic understanding of what objects are all about, and more importantly, knowledge of how to structure a software application from the ground up to make the most of objects.
I wrote Beginning Java Objects (B.J.O.) for anyone who wants to get the most out of an object-oriented programming language like Java; this includes:
- Anyone who has yet to tackle Java, but who wants to get off on the right foot with the language. Ideally, B.J.O. should be the FIRST book you read about Java, before you pick up any other Java language book! But, even if you've already read one or more other Java books, it's not too late to read B.J.O. if any of the following other situations apply to you.
- Anyone who has ever purchased a book on Java, and who has read it faithfully; who understands the "bits and bytes" of the language, but who doesn't quite know how to structure an application to best take advantage of the OO features of the language.
- Anyone who's purchased a Java integrated development environment (IDE) software tool, but who really only knows how to drag and drop graphical user interface (GUI) components and to add a little bit of logic behind buttons, menus, etc. without any real sense of how to properly structure the core of the application around objects.
- Anyone who's built a Java application, but was disappointed with how difficult it was to maintain/modify when new requirements were presented later in the application's lifecycle.
- Anyone who's previously learned something about object modeling, but is 'fuzzy' on how to transition from an object model to real, live code (Java or otherwise).
- Anyone who's struggling to master J2EE without significant Java experience under their belt.
Which version of Java is B.J.O. based on? It seems like every time I blink my eyes, a new version of the Java language is being released by Sun Microsystems! The good news is that B.J.O. is version neutral, because I focus only on core Java language syntax in this book -- language features that have become quite stable since Java's inception. The lessons provided by my book should serve you equally well whether you are using Java 1.3.x, 1.4.x, 1.5.x, or later.
Click here to download a courtesy copy of the introduction to the second edition of Beginning Java Objects ...
James's Bio:
James (“Have Red Pen Will Review”) Huddleston, an independent consultant with a B.A. from Penn, a J.D. from Pitt and over thirty years’ experience in Information Technology, has been a technical reviewer or editor for dozens of books on diverse computer topics. When not having fun writing programs for a living or translating Homer and Vergil as a hobby, he delights in helping authors make good books even better.
If you'd like to get in touch with Jim, please click here:
As a Java developer and instructor, I wrote B.J.O. to communicate my
I’ve been extremely pleased with the wonderful response that I’ve gotten to B.J.O., and was therefore delighted when Gary Cornell, the publisher of Apress LP, and Dominic Shakeshaft, Apress editorial director, approached me about producing a C# version of my book. It’s indeed true that basic object concepts are “language neutral.” What you’ll learn conceptually about objects in Part One of B.C#.O., and about object modeling in Part Two, could apply equally well to C#, or Java, or Visual Basic .NET , or C++, or Ada, or Smalltalk, or an as-yet-to-be-invented object-oriented (OO) language.
But, our goal for this book is twofold: not only do we want to teach you about objects and object modeling, but we also want to get you properly jump-started with the C# programming language by showing you how such concepts translate into C# syntax specifically. Hence, Beginning C# Objects was born!
Because I’m focused wholly on Java technologies in my career as a software engineer, Apress sought professionals experienced with C# to help me in translating my book from Java into C#. Grant Palmer, my coauthor, and James Huddleston, our primary technical reviewer, were the perfect collaborators, and I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to work with them both in producing this book.
Grant's Bio:
For the past 20 years, Grant Palmer has worked in the Space Technology Division at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA. Grant was a NASA engineer for 15 years and currently works as a scientific programmer with the ELORET Corporation developing computer applications that help design the thermal protection systems of spacecraft reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.
Grant earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He later received a Master of Science Degree in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford University. Grant is an expert in Fortran, C, C++, and Perl, but these days does most of his programming in the more modern languages of Java and C#. He has authored or coauthored seven books on computer programming including C# Programmer’s Reference.
Grant lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife, Lisa; his two sons, Jackson and Zachary; and a good, old dog named Bailey.
If you'd like to get in touch with Grant, please click here:
Are you an IT professional? That is, does your career success, if not your very career survival, depend on maintaining leading-edge expertise in a particular information technology? If so, and you've been at it for more than just a year or two, you already know all too well how difficult and stressful a challenge this can be.
As a practicing software engineer since 1978, I've faced the challenge of staying technologically current for over 25 years. My goal in writing Taming the Technology Tidal Wave is to share my "lessons learned" with other IT professionals, in the hope that it will make your own career journey smoother, more rewarding, and a whole lot more fun!
With my book, you'll learn:
- Creative, inexpensive ways to come up to speed on the latest technology trends.
- Ways to recognize technologies that are truly worth spending your time mastering, versus those that are just passing fads.
- How to leverage the skills you already have to land an assignment that will give you on-the-job exposure to the new technical skills that you need.
- How to recognize -- and avoid -- common career pitfalls that could otherwise lead you off-track.
- Advice for moving back into a technical career track if you've already gotten "derailed".
- How to recover from professional burnout and rediscover the joy that led you into an IT career in the first place.
To order a copy of Taming the Technology Tidal Wave, please visit techtidalwave.com.
