Java with BlueJ

Reviewed by Joseph Kendall-Morwick, Assistant Professor, Missouri Western State University on 5/21/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

There are, of course, many Java topics not covered by this book, but the book does a good job of covering important concepts for an introductory programming course. For the topics that are covered, the book is quite exhaustive, covering small details of syntax that students may or may not encounter in their first year or two. The coverage of these topics is complete enough to answer most questions an intro student may come up with when introduced to the basics, but there are some notable exceptions (ex. comments aren’t given a complete explanation before being used in example programs)

Content Accuracy rating: 4

There are some minor typos with snippets of program syntax, but these can lead to confusion. The primary content is related to the reader accurately.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Since this focuses on basic Java concepts that aren’t likely to change, this aspect of the book will be long lived. The book also uses BlueJ in a way that is likely to stay fairly consistent, but with recent updates to the JDK (such as jshell in JDK 9 and “var” in Java 10), tools like BlueJ may be updated to incorporate these beginner-friendly features. That won’t break anything that’s in the book and no static book can account for these changes anyway.

Since the book doesn’t take great advantage of BlueJ’s codpad, the jshell update is mostly irrelevant. The section on variables could be fairly simply updated to incorporate the “var” keyword if the author chooses to do so in the future. Other changes will likely also be easy to integrate with the existing text.

Clarity rating: 4

The language of the book is easy to follow. Sentences are not complicated and the language is concise. Examples are worked through slowly for an introductory programmer. With the exception of a few concepts or terms in the beginning chapters, terms are carefully introduced.

Consistency rating: 5

The language and delivery of concepts is consistent throughout the book. After the first few examples, the reader will recognize the format and what they should expect from BlueJ if they work through an example themselves.

Modularity rating: 5

The book does well dividing topics in to small, logical, self-contained sections with relevant examples. Non-essential chapters of the book are identified early.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The introduction jumps right in to Java history and architecture. As an introductory programming book, it might be more helpful to first introduce the reader to programming, generally, even though the book focuses on Java, specifically. Other times some concepts are introduced a bit too early (for example, literals of many types are introduced before the data types are), though some degree of this is hard to avoid, especially in the beginning, when many concepts are intertwined. After reading through a complete chapter, there are few questions left unanswered.

I liked that style conventions were addressed as concepts come up, and not all at once later in the book. For instance, care was taken to discuss variable naming at the point that variables are introduced and the purpose for indenting if/else structures is specifically addressed.

Exercises are spread throughout the book at thoughtful intervals. This is also important in an introductory text where students are feeling out the practice of programming at the same time that they’re reading about it.

Interface rating: 4

The format of the book is very straight-forward. The code is well formatted with line numbers and helpful syntax coloring. Figures are helpful and well positioned on the pages. There could be improvements with some of the figures, but overall the book is easy to navigate.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

A couple minor errors, though most are typos (as already mentioned).

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The book doesn’t use examples that are specific to particular races, ethnicities, or backgrounds, with the exception of very few that include references to gender, but those that do are inclusive (the data type used is literally non binary).

Comments

While the title of the book is “Java with BlueJ”, the features of BlueJ aren’t exhaustively explored. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, necessarily. Conceivably and with some difficulty, the book could even be used in a class with a different editor. However, readers shouldn’t assume that all of the teaching tools in BlueJ will be utilized (at least in part 1).

Reviewed by Charles Sheaffer, Lecturer, University of North Carolina at Asheville on 2/1/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The text covers the basic aspects of programming in Java including variables, assignment, control structures, arrays, class definitions, and several of the basic Java classes such as String, ArrayList, Random, Scanner, Math, and wrapper classes. In addition, it presents a brief introduction to GUI programming.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The content of the book is generally accurate with the exception of some typographical errors as noted below.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The Java features discussed in the book are not likely to change in the foreseeable future. The BlueJ features may not be as stable, but they are not likely to change in a way that would make the book unusable any time soon.

Clarity rating: 4

The text is written in a straightforward style. The material is presented in direct, concise sentences, generally avoiding excessive verbiage. There are occasional spots where perhaps a bit more explanation might be helpful, such as in the discussion of the use of the enhanced for-loop with arrays or the discussion of the meaning of the "static" keyword.

Consistency rating: 4

The text has a consistent point-of-view and use of language.

Modularity rating: 3

Many of the topics in the text are presented as self-contained units, though many of the later chapters build on material presented in earlier chapters. This is the usual practice in introductory texts in programming. There is some modularity within chapters, such as the presentation of conditional and iterative control structures. Some re-arrangement of chapters is possible after the first three. For example, arrays could be presented before ArrayLists, and the chapter on classes could be presented earlier.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The chapters follow a logical progression.

Interface rating: 3

The text contains a great many typographical errors. Most of them are minor, but a few detract from the value of the text. For example, many of the tables contain incorrect symbols that could be confusing and misleading.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text contains no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

The text does not appear to be culturally insensitive or offensive. Examples are limited to areas with which all students are likely to be familiar.

Comments

The text is appropriate for teaching beginning Java programming. It presents the basic material clearly and succinctly. There are clear, helpful explications of the meaning of most of the program examples. The text is less appropriate for teaching problem solving and program development. The strongest part of the text is the discussion of control structures in Chapter 3, as noted above. The weakest part is the discussion of Java class definitions in Chapter 7. It would be helpful to have more discussion of how one might go about developing a class and its methods. It would also benefit from illustrations directly from BlueJ of class relationships and what happens to objects when their internals are modified by methods.