Any Comments/Thoughts of Java SCJP 1.6 Book by Khalid Mughal

Hi Co-ranchers,

Is there anybody studying from this book mentioned in the subject line? Please share your experience or thoughts regarding this book. I will highly appreciate it.

Thank you so much,

This is an excellent book, much better than Sierra Bates book

Hi
Am using both books...

I honestly feel that the K&B book is better to begin with and understand the concept mainly because the text isn't written like a 'textbook' (Thank God for that

) and the examples are more intuitive.

That said however the range of questions(both number and type) in the Khalid Mughal book is better/broader than K&B.

So IMHO I guess its better to start of with K&B and then move onto the Khalid Mughal book for the questions. At least that's what I am doing anyway.

(Well we'll see how good a strategy that is after my SCJP on Monday

)

Thanks a lot for your timely feedback. I appreciate it.

I read both and in a nutshell, K&B shows you only what you need for the test because it assume that at least you are a junior java programmer. On the other hand, Khalid's book ask helps you to past the test but it is more comprehensive because it assume that you want to become a java junior programmer.... I hope my analogy helps you!

Disclaimer: I looked at older versions of Mughal's book, but I haven't seen the new version yet. I thought the old version was good and I expect the new version is good too.

Java is HUGE... IMHO no one book can cover it all.

Kathy and I had a goal to teach about 110% of what's needed to get a great score on the SCJP exam In general we believe that technical material should be as focused as possible. Let's say that that happens to be 4% of what there is to know about Java. My sense is that Mughal's goal was to cover 140% of what's on the exam, and thereby cover 5% of what there is to know about Java.

So I would say that if your goal is mostly about the SCJP exam, the K&B book will be a bit more focused. If your goal is to find a good book that covers the exam AND a bit more, than Mughal's book is probably a good one to consider. What I don't know is how well Mughal describes which parts of his book are beyond what's on the exam. That would be good to know.

hth,

Bert

Bert Bates wrote:
...
What I don't know is how well Mughal describes which parts of his book are beyond what's on the exam. That would be good to know.
...

Each chapter starts by listing the exam objectives that are covered in the chapter, and a list of supplementary objectives (i.e. additional topics) that are not on the exam.
While reading a topic in a chapter, it is fairly easy to see whether it is part of the exam requirement or not by consulting the objectives at the start of the chapter.
These additional topics have been included primarily to ensure that concepts are explained from the ground up, and can easily be skipped if they are familiar.

Our book web site has more on what the book has to offers.
Please do check it out.

I find that it is helpful to go through a small set of exercises after reading about a concept, and in the sample chapter on Threads, they do have a set of challenging questions/exercises that really make us think - and this makes the concepts much clearer.

So far I've reviewed the first few pages of a sample chapter on Threads from this book:

http://www.coderanch.com/t/442343/Programmer-Certification-SCJP/certification/Exercise-Programmer-s-Guide-Java

http://www.coderanch.com/t/442316/Programmer-Certification-SCJP/certification/IllegalThreadStateException-Programmer-s-Guide-Java

Edit: removed things that were already mentioned

This is a goo thread. I would like to know more from people who have read multiple SCJP books.

using UML for illustration is a (+)plus point of this book.

Hi all!

Thank you so much for your wonderful comments and feedback. But now, I have made up my mind to buy this book in addition to other book (K&B) which is very popular in this forum. I hope this will be helpful in the long run as it has covered other topics too.

Thanks again,