I recently purchased Beginning Java 2 JDK 1.3 Edition, authored by Ivor Horton. I purchased this book mainly as a reference and as an addition to my library of Java books. Ivor Horton is an excellent author and teacher, and the layout of the book makes for easy reading or referencing a certain topic. Thus my reason for purchasing the book.

After a cursory review of the book, I noticed that there does not seem to be any mention of how to enter input from the keyboard. I was particularly looking for this reference, because I was hoping to show a friend the comparison of inputting from the keyboard in C++ as compared to Java. Additionally, other Java Programming books I've referenced seem to be "weak" in showing the reader how to input from the keyboard. Usually, the reader has to dig into the book to discover how to do this.

Chapters 8 and 9 discuss Streams of various types, and in these chapters these are many good examples of writing to or reading from various types of files. However, no where in the entire book could I find any reference to entering input from the keyboard! I thought that for a "Beginning..." book, such a concept would have been at least briefly explained in one of the early chapters, and then explained in more detail in a later chapter. But this does not seem to be the case with this particular book.

In contrast, I noticed that the "JDK 1.4 Edition" of this same title does contain a very good explanation of how to provide input from the keyboard (in chapter 8). However, the "JDK 1.4 Edition" does not include other valuable chapters that are in the "JDK 1.3 Edition", such as Chapter 19 "Talking to Databases" and Chapter 20 "The JDBC in Action".

So in addition to leaving out some very basic information (keyboard input) in the "JDK 1.3 Edition", there seems to be inconsistency in the topics that are discussed between successive editions. Perhaps, if there is another edition of the "Beginning Java 2" series, someone should ensure that the book covers all of the topics discussed in both the "JDK 1.3 Edition" and the "JDK 1.4 Edition.

Once again, I value the Wrox Press books and I hope my comments are taking as constructive criticism.

Thanks,
Dennis