Free Java Books

Google, Amazon, and Beyond: Creating and Consuming Web Services

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 16:07:05 -0400

While many books are focused on the underlying technologies of web services and others are dedicated to providing web services, few books show how to consume web services. Google, Amazon, and Beyond: Creating and Consuming Web Services provides a thorough review of the technologies and techniques for connecting client applications to services of all kinds.

Using a decidedly hands-on approach, authors Alexander Nakhimovsky and Tom Myers present extensive examples of programming with XML, SOAP, REST, and WSDL in JavaScript (tested in IE and Mozilla) and in Java (using open-source tools available on Windows, Linux, and OS X).

Managing Projects with GNU Make

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:13:58 -0400

The utility simply known as make is one of the most enduring features of both Unix and other operating systems. First invented in the 1970s, make still turns up to this day as the central engine in most programming projects; it even builds the Linux kernel. In the third edition of the classic Managing Projects with GNU make, readers will learn why this utility continues to hold its top position in project build software, despite many younger competitors. The premise behind make is simple: after you change source files and want to rebuild your program or other output files, make checks timestamps to see what has changed and rebuilds just what you need, without wasting time rebuilding other files. But on top of this simple principle, make layers a rich collection of options that lets you manipulate multiple directories, build different versions of programs for different platforms, and customize your builds in other ways. This edition focuses on the GNU version of make, which has deservedly become the industry standard. GNU make contains powerful extensions that are explored in this book. It is also popular because it is free software and provides a version for almost every platform, including a version for Microsoft Windows as part of the free Cygwin project. Managing Projects with GNU make, 3rd Edition provides guidelines on meeting the needs of large, modern projects. Also added are a number of interesting advanced topics such as portability, parallelism, and use with Java. Robert Mecklenburg, author of the third edition, has used make for decades with a variety of platforms and languages. In this book he zealously lays forth how to get your builds to be as efficient as possible, reduce maintenance, avoid errors, and thoroughly understand what make is doing. Chapters on C++ and Java provide makefile entries optimized for projects in those languages. The author even includes a discussion of the makefile used to build the book.

Java AWT Reference

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:38:00 -0400

The Java AWT Reference provides complete reference documentation on the Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT), a large collection of classes for building graphical user interfaces in Java. With AWT, you can create windows, draw, work with images, and use components like buttons, scrollbars, and pulldown menus. The Java AWT Reference covers the classes that comprise the java.awt, java.awt.image, java.applet,java.awt.event, and java.awt.datatransfer packages. These classes provide the functionality that allows a Java application to provide user interaction in a graphical environment.

This book takes you beyond what you'd expect from a standard reference manual. Classes and methods are, of course, described in detail. But the book does much more. It offers a comprehensive explanation of how AWT components fit together. In working with components, for example, you'll see how events fit into the overall picture, what they mean, and how to use them. The book includes lots of sample code, so that you can learn by example. In addition to descriptions of the standard layout managers, for instance, you'll find an extended code example for writing your own layout manager.