Carl said
I used this textbook to tutor a high school student for the AP Computer A exam and had a good experience with it. It is true that some of the explanations are simplified and do not always use technical language, but this is after all an introductory text and most likely to be used by high school students--perhaps some who have not had any previous preparation. The student I tutored scored a 5 on the AP Computer Science A exam. That is, of course, not all due to the textbook, but the point is that the textbook is adequate for its purpose if accompanied by good instruction, plenty of labs, and focus on the AP case study. By the way, you will find the textbook on the College Board's list of example textbooks for the AP computer science A course.
Raymond Campbell said
I was asked to teach an AP CS course and thought this looked like the safest bet - the kids hated it! It is clearly a hacked down version of the authors other Java books. Explanations are not clear and the book simply could not have been written in a less engaging manner. I will not use this book again and will avoid titles from this publisher.
said
I am basically a math teacher with a lot of bright computer science students. Of all of the books currently available in Java for AP Computer Science, this was the hands down winner with the kids, especially amongst the one semester students who were taking the A test.
Weba Aranyam said
This is a hastily done book, since AP Comp Sci just switched to Java, which in itself was a bad decision ( I should take that up with CEEB)
For example, before talking about variable scopes, it starts using the idiom - for ( int start=1; start <= maxlines;="" start++="" )="" {="" ....="" }-="" which="" in="" my="" opinion="" is="" bad="" for="" a="" beginner="" high="" school="" student.one="" can="" really="" get="" into="" trouble="" if="" one="" doesn't="" know="" what="" one="" is="" doing,="" especailly="" for="" high="" school="" students.="" one="" student="" that="" i="" know,="" spent="" all="" night="" working="" on="" the="" stars="" program="" given="" in="" the="" exercise,="">
On the other hand, Java Methods by Maria Litvin & Gary Litvin, clearly state this problem in their chapter 6 - "...But declarations inside nested blocks can lead to elusive bugs. We recommend that at first you avoid declaring local variables inside nested blocks unless you know exactly what you are doing."
Don't get me wrong, I do like their other Java S/W Solutions by JLewis, et al - which is for a much more mature audience.
Anonymous said
This book should be called Java Software Solutions for a Complete Idiot. This is, for example, how they introduce some of the OOP concepts (p. 58):
"A data type defines a set of values and operations -- what we can do with those values"... [a type does not define a set of values!] ... "An object is defined by a class, which is like the data type of the object." ... "Once a class has been defined, objects can be created from that class." ... "Classes can be created from other classes using inheritance. That is, the definition of one class can be based on another class that already exists. Inheritance is a form of software reuse. We are taking advantage of the ways some classes are alike. One class can be used to create several new classes. These classes can then be used to create even more classes."
And so on, the whole book. "This book is written by a robot. This book should be read by you. Commas are not used in this book..."
Here is how they introduce algorithms (p. 123):
"One basic design issue is defining the algorithms to be used in the program. An algorithm is a step-by-step process for solving a problem. A recipe is like an algorithm. Travel directions are like an algorithm. Every program uses one or more algorithms. Every software developer should spend time thinking about the algorithms before writing any code."
Every software developer should spend time thinking before buying this book!
Actually, the introduction claims this is an AP textbook:
"This book is designed for both A and AB exam by identifying what material is required for each exam."
That is exactly right, "identifying." But not teaching! I took the AB exam last year; here the whole AB stuff is crammed into two last chapters, 70 pages, including silly review questions. Not even close.
Speaking of review questions... Question 1.3: "What happens to information when it is stored digitally?" Answer: "the information is broken into pieces, and those pieces are represented as numbers."
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