14 Excellent Free Books to Learn Java

Last Updated on March 19, 2024

4. Java Application Development on Linux by Carl Albing, Michael Schwarz

Java Application Development on Linux is a hands-on guide to the full Java application development life-cycle on Linux.

This book leads readers through business-logic object analysis, database design, Java servlet UIs, Java Server Pages (JSP) UIs, Swing GUIs, and Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) GUIs. Scaling up to the enterprise level provides the opportunity to use both the JBoss Application Server and the Apache Geronimo Application Servers, and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB).

Java Application Development on Linux is targeted at experienced Java programmers who are looking to develop and deploy Java applications on Linux systems.

Learn how to:

• Use development tools available on Linux, such as the GNU Compiler for Java (gcj), Ant, the
• NetBeans IDE, IBM’s Eclipse Java IDE, JUnit, and SunONE Studio
• Develop business logic layers using Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC)
• Storing the Data with Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL
• Introduction to JDBC
• Add a Web interface using servlets and JSPs
• Add a GUI using Sun’s Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) and IBM’s SWT Toolkit
• Servlets
• JSP: Servlets including how to write a JSP application
• Deploy EJBs in Linux

This book is part of Bruce Perens’ Open Source Series. All books in this series are released under the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later.

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5. Building Back-End Web Apps with Java, JPA and JSF by Mircea Diaconescu, Gerd Wagner

Building Back-End Web Apps with Java, JPA and JSF teaches you how to build Java back-end web applications with Java Server Faces (JSF) as the user interface technology, the Java Persistence API (JPA) for object-to-storage mapping, and a MySQL database.

It follows a “learning by doing” approach, focusing only on the essential parts of Java and the minimum needed for starting to code your first application. The book shows the reader how to build a minimal Java web app in just 7 steps: set up the folder structure, write the model code, configure the app, implement the Create Use Case, implement the Retrieve/List All Use Case, implement the update Use Case, and implement the Delete Use Case. There are practice projects included.

The book is in draft, and may be incomplete in some respects.

The book, along with any associated source code, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL).

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6. Thinking in Java, 3rd ed. Revision 2.0 by Bruce Eckel

Thinking in Java, 3rd Edition covers many of the nooks and crannies of the Java language, which is of great value in the programming world.

The most prominent feature of the book is its extremely thorough treatment of the Java language, with special attention to object design. Some of the best thinking about objects is in this book, including when to use composition over inheritance. The esoteric details of Java in regard to defining classes are thoroughly laid out.

Topics covered:

• Object-design basics – an introduction to the basic concepts of OOP, including an overview of development methods
• Inheritance and polymorphism – Polymorphism allows improved code organization and readability as well as the creation of extensible programs that can be “grown” not only during the original creation of the project but also when new features are desired
• Object lifetimes – Java provides a feature called a garbage collector that automatically discovers when an object is no longer in use and destroys it
• Error Handling with exception handling – dealing with errors
• Analysis and design basics
• Java basics: keywords and flow control
• Initializing objects
• Garbage collection – automatically releases memory resources when they are no longer being used
• Java packages
• Designing for reuse: composition vs. inheritance
• Interfaces and inner classes
• Arrays and container classes – includes the defining and initializing an array, returning an array, the Arrays class, filling an array, copying an array, comparing arrays, array element comparisons, sorting an array, searching a sorted array, and array summary
• Java I/O classes – gives the reader an introduction to the variety of I/O classes in the standard Java library and how to use them
• Concurrency – objects provide a way to divide a program into independent sections
• Run-time type identification
• Network programming with sockets
• Cloning objects – looks at basic threads, sharing limited resources, thread states, cooperation between threads, deadlock and more
• Creating Windows and Applets – covers the Java 2 Swing library
• The Java Native Interface (JNI)
• Java programming guidelines – contains suggestions to help guide the reader in performing low-level program design, and in writing code

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Next page: Page 3 – Java Programming for Kids and more books

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction to Programming Using Java and more books
Page 2 – Java Application Development on Linux and more books
Page 3 – Java Programming for Kids and more books
Page 4 – Object Oriented Programming using Java and more books
Page 5 – Java Structures and more books

All books in this series: