Beginning Java Networking

The chapters of this book are grouped in five sections. The first section looks at network basics. Java networking preliminaries are then covered in the following section. The third section explores classes that are provided by Java to handle a variety of network tasks. Java API's that are used for distributed network programming are covered in section four. The fifth and final section investigates new networking features and improvements offered by JDK 1.4.

This book covers:

First of all, I am an experienced computer programmer, and have developed code for the Java core programming language. I have read many-a-programming book, and can tell you to stay away from this one. Why?

This book:

* is not practical
* is filled with *serious* errors - not just typos
* fails by attempting to cover too many topics
* lacks examples and good diagrams
* lacks a sense of continuity from chapter to chapter

Many of this book's chapters are written as if they were a theorem: generalizations and buzzwords that don't get you anywhere. For example:

"If a set of permissions can between them imply a permission - even if no single permission in the set explicitly implies it completely by itself - you will need to provide your own implementation of PermissionCollection." Ha!

"Because sockets are just *programming* abstractions for network protocols, the other side of the connection does not have to use them. For example, the network program on the right side of this example may be coded in an exotic system that does not use the socket abstraction. That is, sockets don't use any additional communications mechanism other than that provided by the encapsulated protocol." Gimme a break!

Some of the errors in this book are the following:

* Chapter 5's author says that java.io.InputStream's "public int read(byte[] buf, int offset, int length)" method reads the input stream starting at 'offset' bytes deep into the input buffer - skipping the bytes toward the front of the buffer. This is incorrect. The author even has a diagram and examples to complement his error. This method actually reads starting at the front of the input buffer, and reads the bytes into 'buf' starting at buf[offset].

* As if all of the previous chapters' authors' errors weren't bad enough, Chapter 9's author took me to a screeching halt and compelled me to write this whole review when he said this: " It should be noted that the java.net.Socket object returned is bound to an ephemeral port number that is different from the one the ServerSocket is listening to (most applications don't care about that port number)." Whoa! This is absolutely, fundamentally wrong. In truth, the returned Socket has the *same* receiving port number as the ServerSocket. (Otherwise the client's Socket (whose destination port number is the same as the ServerSocket's receiving port number) wouldn't know what this "ephemeral port number" is, and so wouldn't be able to send packets to the server's newly created Socket.) IP packets are demultiplexed according to their *connection* (The 2 connected sockets, i.e. 5 parameters: the common protocol, the source's IP address & port number, and the destination's IP address & port number) and according to socket specificity, not just according to the receiving side's socket.

* Wrong diagrams. p.163: The diagram is of a program's output which shows "access denied", while its caption above says, basically, "tada, and it works." p.52: This diagram belongs in the I/O chapter.

The only chapter I found to be somewhat good was the Thread chapter (and a chapter on threads shouldn't even be in a book on networking). This book also suffers from lacking continuity due to the fact that it was written by 10 authors! For instance, this book has no consistent (or good) way of listing the API's and diagraming class relations. Chapters do not pedagogically build on the previous ones. I could go on...

If you want to learn about networking using Java, then here are your prerequisites. You should learn each of these from a book which specializes in the given topic.

* Basic Java Programming including I/O and Threads
* The TCP/IP protocol suite and TCP/IP networking
* Cryptography (optional)
* Java Security

After you do that, I highly recommend the book "TCP/IP Sockets In Java: Practical Guide for Programmers". This book gets the job done at only 110 pages. Another reason I recommend this book is that it lists references to 22 other good and relevant books/documents.

If you want to learn about HTML, Javascript, Servlets, JSP, RMI, CORBA, etc., then you should find a book specific to that topic. For instance, Marty Hall's books on Servlets and JSP are great.

Just because a programming book is thick, doesn't mean it's good. The book's publisher, Wrox, does put out some good books, but this just isn't one of them.


Unorganized and bloated   June 27, 2002
 5 out of 7 found this review helpful

I bought this book in hopes that it would help guide me on the path to learn Java programming. Numbering over 1000 pages by several different authors, this book does not have a very consistent feel to it, and jumps around to various subjects about Java and various networking principles. The first 200 pages would be good for a university networking class, but as for being a decent tutorial, it is horrible. This book gives little code snippets here and there, but never fully combines them into one large, solid, and useful application.

If you are looking for a book to act as a Java tutorial to networking, this is not the book for you. It is very comprehensive in some areas, and much more than many people are willing to spend in getting through sections of this book. However, if you are looking for a little more general purpose Java networking Bible, then this book might be more suited for you.


Great source of information   October 25, 2001
 12 out of 15 found this review helpful

I was looking to do more than what you normally find documented in Java and this gave me the details I needed. It has a lot of network protocol details right in the book so you don't have to keep switching between a protocol book and a Java book. Although it's titled, "Beginning Java Networking" it would also benefit an advanced Java programmer interested in writing networking programs.