Reviews

Effective Java: Third Edition by Joshua Bloch

cgn's review

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4.5

Extremely well written, with plenty of examples of both what to do and what not to do. Highlights a wide variety of best coding practices and explains the reasons for them very well.

xerzv's review

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challenging informative slow-paced

5.0

clockworkfrogs's review

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4.0

Excellent tidbits of java wisdom. And it really is a stylistic thing; most of the time I go to check something it isn't covered. But reading all of this will definitely improve your Java

manish003's review

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5.0

Read this book as a part of my internship.
This book is not for beginners and expects you to know the basics already.
This book is your guide to customary and effective usage of the java language. It contains both warning and tips. Ideas to work around common problems. Common pitfalls to avoid. It also gives you an idea about how the underlying mechanism works. While the central focus is java, most principles apply universally.

teodorapenoiu's review

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3.0

I'm gonna start that saying that if you're a beginner, this isn't the place to start learning.

Ok, now on to the review. I found a lot of the stuff the author said was really useful and sth I've actually had to implement while coding (without know it's a standard), but that doesn't mean everything was useful and that's fine. I just wish this did a better job keeping my attention.

sir_earle's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.0

Although this book spent more time talking about writing shared packages than is relevant to me, I found the book really informative nonetheless. The great thing about the structure of the book is that if a certain section is irrelevant, skipping it brings little consequence.  

mattj256's review

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5.0

This is an advanced book, for those who already know the Java language and want to be familiar with best practices. I really appreciate the author's Talmudic knowledge of the intricacies of the Java platform, combined with his very precise use of language. In the acknowledgements section Bloch mentions 11 people who reviewed every chapter (including his wife) and another 11 who reviewed parts of the book. That seems like a lot of people to me!

I got a strong sense that each word and phrase was only allowed to remain in the book after careful review and reflection. While the author has clear opinions, he is careful to point out the justification for each rule as well as edge cases and counterexamples. I really appreciate his pragmatism: the point is to write programs that will have good security, maintainability, performance, and other attributes, not to blindly follow rules.

I also appreciate his occasional references to 1960s popular culture and occasional humor. Some of the sections (especially generics and streams) can be very dense and technical, and the humor helps to make it more fun and digestible.

jakemcc's review

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5.0

Pretty great book. A lot of good advice in here for writing Java programs and some that is applicable to other languages.

I know I've also read an early edition of this book and still enjoyed rereading. I took a five year detour and almost entirely wrote Clojure so it was nice to read this and get a feel for some of the new Java 8+ features.

onurkaracali's review

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5.0

Better to re-read regularly, with great focus.

moormaan's review against another edition

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5.0

An essential read for an aspiring Java developer and a painstaking reminder of all the leaky abstractions out there in the most used programming language in the world.

I was lucky to be refreshing my knowledge of, and starting to use Kotlin as I was reading this - it made me realize how much Kotlin designers had all these lessons I their minds as they were gifting the world with their creation.