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Book: Writing about a Beta API, Risky?

 
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Herb,

I was wondering what risks, if any, were considered when writing this book. I have personally seen some books written about an API that was still in it's beta phases and the books turned out to be worthless by the time the final release was available.

I realize it isn't quite the same thing when it comes to the actual Java language. Do you feel confident that your book will hold true when Java 5 is released as final? Is anything likely to change?
 
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The problem is, there may still be bugs in the beta version (even in release version), and if in the beta stage, SUN discovers any bugs, it may change the API, or remove them.

But you may not know if you are writing applications based on beta. If your application is tightly coupled with those APIs, you may find problems when it has been changed, or removed, as the behaviour may then not what you expected at the beginning.

Thus, better wait for offical release for application development purposes.

Nick
 
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Originally posted by Nicholas Cheung:
The problem is, there may still be bugs in the beta version (even in release version), and if in the beta stage, SUN discovers any bugs, it may change the API, or remove them.

But you may not know if you are writing applications based on beta. If your application is tightly coupled with those APIs, you may find problems when it has been changed, or removed, as the behaviour may then not what you expected at the beginning.

Thus, better wait for offical release for application development purposes.

Nick



What did that have to do with my question?
 
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Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:
I realize it isn't quite the same thing when it comes to the actual Java language. Do you feel confident that your book will hold true when Java 5 is released as final? Is anything likely to change?



That is exactly the same question what I asked Lasse inthis thread of Book Review forum, when Lasse posted his review on this book...

I belive this is a big risky... I even found some changes in beta 1 and beta 2... Sometime in the last month, one rancher asked me about the Tiger code and unable to compile it using JDK beta 2 version... And I corrected it using the modified syntax in beta 2, because his code is written based on the beta 1 version...

Mmm... let's see whether the current book in promotion can beat this difficulty or not...
 
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I did just read of one change between Beta 1 and Beta 2. The Scanner class in Beta 1 had a static create method. In Beta 2 they removed the create method in lieu of using a constructor.

So I guess the real question is, does the book cover beta 1 or beta 2?
 
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Originally posted by Gregg Bolinger:
I did just read of one change between Beta 1 and Beta 2. The Scanner class in Beta 1 had a static create method. In Beta 2 they removed the create method in lieu of using a constructor.

So I guess the real question is, does the book cover beta 1 or beta 2?



The book cover beta 2... Mmm, I guess you haven't read the thread that I provided above, which is about the review of Lasse on this book... Here is the link again.
 
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First: I can't speak for any other books or articles, but my book "Java 2, v5.0 (Tiger) New Features" was written and tested using Beta 2. It also focuses mostly on the language features, which are highly stable. Because of this, I believe that all code in the book will compile and run with the released version. If its not the case, then, of course, errata will be posted.

As to differences between Beta 1 and Beta 2, yes, the Scanner class did change. Of course, my book reflects the updated material. Also, in some cases the behavoir of the compiler was brought into line with the documentation.

But here is the important point: Java 2, v5 is a watershed event. If you want to keep your Java skills current, you simply must start learning about version 5 now. Version 5 is not like the previous upgrades. It makes major changes to the language. It will take more than a couple of days to get comfortable with it. It is something that you will want to get started witht now, before you get left behind.
 
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Originally posted by Herb Schildt:
But here is the important point: Java 2, v5 is a watershed event. If you want to keep your Java skills current, you simply must start learning about version 5 now. Version 5 is not like the previous upgrades. It makes major changes to the language. It will take more than a couple of days to get comfortable with it. It is something that you will want to get started witht now, before you get left behind.



I agree with you Herb. It's just that I have been burned by books on beta API's before and wanted to know how your book dealt with the fact that Java 5 is still Beta. Thanks for easing my concerns.
 
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