An Advanced Java Readlng List

10:55 PM java , java training 0 Comments

Recently, I finished doing a 32-hour training over 8 days for a group for 30 Java professionals. We covered several topics, and I published to them a list of further reading that has influenced me as a developer over the years. Perhaps you will find value in the same list I shared with them:

1. 
   Head First Design Patterns - My co-workers and I studied this book a chapter a week together over lunch back in 2007. Decorators, Observers, and Strategies completely changed my perspective on how to develop code prepared for change.
2. 
   Effective Java (2nd Edition) - After having developed in Java for 14 years, I finally picked up Josh Bloch's book and after the first chapter I was sorry I had waited so long. It explained and validated many of my long held practices as well as introduced me to additional good ones, like the self-documenting power of public static final methods as named constructors.
   
3. 
   Java SE8 for Programmers (3rd Edition) (Deitel Developer Series) - Java 8 is the coolest Java release since Java 5. Method references and lambdas immediately changed the way I code for the better. In addition, java.time is the Date/Time API we've always wanted. Deitel's book is great at exposing all the great new features that will change the way you code in Java.
   
4. 
   Starting Out with Java: Early Objects (4th Edition) (Gaddis Series) - Alternatively, there were some attendees who wanted a good foundational Java book. I've used this book when teaching intro Java classes, and I like it! Especially, I like the early introduction to object-oriented programming.
   
5. 
   Java Concurrency in Practice - This is another eye-opening book that I waited far too long to read. Atomicity I understood, but I had never considered the ideas of visibility or re-ordering. And I was completely helped out by his explanation for what to do with InterruptedException.
   
6. 
   Java Performance: The Definitive Guide
   
7. 
   Iron-Clad Java: Building Secure Web Applications - I included this one because security is often tacked on after running some vulnerability assessment. While I might agree that one should "optimize after", security should be built in from the start.
   
8. 
   Mastering JavaServer Faces 2.2 - To be honest, I prefer an action-based framework like Spring MVC, but JSF 2.2 caught my eye, especially with the new HTML5-friendly JSF attribute syntax. More than that, this group of engineers asked for training on it, and this is a great book to get a more comprehensive view. :)
   
9. 
   REST in Practice: Hypermedia and Systems Architecture - This book is not quite as practical as the rest of them, but I really liked the theory outlined here, mixed with code examples. Through this book, I better understood the gaps that exist between existing libraries and what ReST specifies.
   
10. 
    Pro JPA 2: Mastering the Java(TM) Persistence API (Expert's Voice in Java Technology)
    
11. 
    Java Message Service - This book helped me understand an API that had to that point had seemed so inaccessible to me. That and Spring Boot made it super-easy! :)
    

Enjoy!