Java in a Nutshell

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…all number of excellent Java books. I like the official specification and the books by Arnold and Gosling, Marty Hall, and Peter van der Linden. For reference I like the Java in a Nutshell series and the online references at Sun (I copy the javadoc APIs and the language specification and its amendments to my local disk and bookmark them in my browser so I'll always have fast access.)

…ind of McCarthyism where there are good books and bad books, instead of each book having strengths and weaknesses. To put this in perspective, I personally really liked "Java in a Nutshell", because Flanagan's writing is brilliant. It's very succinct, yet covers all the cases, has a joie de vivre about it, and yet is so transparent it's easy to not notice it (Douglas Adam's prose also has this quality). Revealingly, Flanagan loves writing; and is very well read himself. Most writers of programming books are not. Now, to me, being well-written is very pleasing; but I can imagine it not mattering at all to the next programmer.