 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Swing for Java Major Keary |
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Swing is a component set that forms part of a library called Java Foundation Classes and replaces the now obsolete Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT). Swing is used by Java programmers to create graphical user interfaces, and one of the foremost authorities on Swing is John Zukowski; he was the author of the popular O'Reilly title, Java AWT Reference.
If you program in Java, as distinct from JavaScript, Swing will be of interest; and if you want a guide to Swing, the Definitive Guide to Swing for Java 2 should satisfy your needs. This title, now in its second edition, is published by Apress, which is a fairly new publishing venture established by authors (hence the 'A' in 'Apress'). Going on those titles that I have seen, there is a high standard of quality control at all levels, and books are not simply pushed out for the sake of market presence.
In this instance readers are assumed to have a professional programming background in Java and are used to setting up their own development environments. Apart from some introductory remarks about the Unified Modelling Language (UML), which is used throughout the text to provide explanatory diagrams, the reader enters the pool at the deep end.
Sample code is extensively used to support the text, which is presented in a how-to style, and all the examples can be downloaded from the Apress Web site.
Some thirty pages of 2-column index and a comprehensive table of contents should make information easy to find. The author does not hold the reader's hand, but gets right down to the business of how to implement Swing. If you want a definitive guide to Swing, have a look at this title.
| John Zukowski: Definitive Guide to Swing for Java 2
2/e ISBN 1-893115-78-X Published by Apress, 890 pp., $101.77 |
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Reprinted from the July 2002 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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