New Book: Programming with Java in 24 Hours

I just launched the web site for Sams Teach Yourself Programming with Java in 24 Hours, my 21st computer book since I began writing them in 1996. I'm not sure how this happened. I went to college to learn interpretive dance.

This is the fourth edition of the book, updated to cover Java 2 version 5. I wrote the first in a 17-day haze in 1997, covering Java 1.1 and its class library, which is less than one-tenth the size of the Java 2 class library today.

Over the years, the book has grown to 558 pages and been heavily reworked several times to reflect changing priorities among Java's several million programmers. Back in 1987, Java was touted as the ideal language for designing interactive web content like games and animation, so the book covered applets extensively. Today, Macromedia Flash has all but killed applets in the browser -- the last major web site using Java applets, ESPN, switched to Flash within the last year for its fantasy sports and live game stats. Java coders use the language primarily on Internet servers, database programs, web applications and middleware.

The fourth edition devotes new chapters to two subjects that weren't even around eight years ago: XML and XML-RPC. I wanted to get XML-RPC into the book so badly that I suspended the laws of time and space. Each of Sams' 24 Hours books contains 24 one-hour tutorials, which add up to a day under a timekeeping system established by the Babylonians more than 1,000 years ago. I broke that system to make room for Hour 25, "Creating Web Services with XML-RPC."

I cover XML-RPC programming using Apache XML-RPC, an open source Java class library that makes it easy to move data around from program to program over the Internet. I rely on it all the time -- this week, I transferred thousands of database records from a Frontier server to an XML-RPC server on my desktop machine to a PHP/MySQL database on Workbench.

Each chapter ends with two programming exercises solved on the site. The Hour 25 exercises are an XML-RPC client, server and request handler for the XML-RPC interface of Advogato.

Even if you don't buy the book -- a possibility I hate to even contemplate -- those two applications demonstrate how to make and receive XML-RPC requests in Java using Apache XML-RPC.

Publishing · Programming · Java · 2005/11/29 · 5 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Good stuff. I'll be sure to look for that next time I'm at the book store. Being that I'm into blogging, the XML-RPC stuff should be particularly interesting.

#1 · David K. · 2005/11/29

I'd like to see your interpretive dance. Can you do 'Salome'?

#2 · Carob Bean · 2005/11/30

Bean asks, "I'd like to see your interpretive dance. Can you do 'Salome'?"

Well, in this case, it would be the "Dance of the Hidden Veil."

...And, that is what modern journalism has become, it seems: a matter of providing tantalizing glimpses of the truth, in order to promote desire for their "body" of information, and in the way they present it.

Rogers' avocation hasn't diminished his ability to "dance" around with swirls and flourishes...

#3 · Tadowe · 2005/12/01

There's truth in what you say about journalism, Tadowe, especially broadcast news journalism. But are you talking about news journalism, or story-telling? Admittedly, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

A 'story teller' can only reveal the 'truth' as it's revealed to him, or made up, whichever the case may be. After all, there's only so many hours in the day (25).

#4 · Vince Williams · 2005/12/01

Vince asks, "But are you talking about news journalism, or story-telling?"

What's the difference in the present reality? Rogers consistently spins the title of the 'news' articles he posts on Drudge Retort, with an expert pirouette to lead a partisan inference.

The LA Times reports on the state of the economy, and swirls the good news into doubt about by referencing the complexity of the US economy; flourishing their effort to foster that doubt in their reading public.

The same Times organization dances around the fact that Civil Affairs units are responsible for distributing propaganda to the indigenouse populations in their area of operation, and leads the inference that the "Pentagon" is lying to those peoples. At the same time, the Times is paying their reporters to slant the news and provide the public with virtual lies when they propagandize doubt about the facts of our rapidly improving economy.

Just as commentators on this blog, and Rogers' Retort, twist, frug and chicken their partisanship and spreading the same virtual lies they get from the Times, Post, and blogs preaching to their choir-like ears...

"A 'story teller' can only reveal the 'truth' as it's revealed to him, or made up, whichever the case may be."

The 'story teller' is hoping to have their 'listener' believe their story, and while it is the responsibility of the listener to determine the truth or falsehood of what they are told. In that regard, I doubt everything I read, unless it conforms with my own sure and certain knowledge, or with the principles and morals I hold as true, or I research the subject.

My movement is linear and isn't a 'dance.'

#5 · Tadowe · 2005/12/02