I am Mechanical Engineer. Two years back, when IT revolution started. I plan to enter into the IT field. With an enthusiasm I started learning languages like C, C++ and Java. But when I started for the search for book to get worth knowledge of Java. I got hundreds of references ranging from Rs. 100 to Rs. 500 and plus and all books are nice, colourful, descriptive and many new editions are come with CD-ROMs. Choosing a right book as a beginner for Java with a fair idea of C and C++ programming languages was not big deal for me. I started searching through pages of books available on Java and search stop at Java 2: The Complete Reference by Herbert Schildt, 2nd edition (now available in 4th edition). The main reason for choosing book was presentations style of book, and the explanations with examples.
Today, I am software professional and using this book like anything. This is will give you total functionality provided by Java. The small small examples in book help you in covering every functions of Java also put the focus on topic.
I raid this book around thrice. Till I need help of this book when I use to code in Java. In tomorrows world of emerging technology I will like to recommend this book to every programmer to go through it at least once. Another book I will suggest is of the Java by Cay Hoursmann. This book is also good conceptually but the major difference is that he doesn’t cover the Servlets, EJB and JSP. These topics are also important for the coming era of Java technology.