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Along the way of life, somehow I got into some book writing. Actually, I got into
many different forms of writing - including writing standards work and code (OK,
strictly not technically writing, but it is a form of art). This has been a long
slow process over time slowly graduating to bigger and better things.
Presented here is the summaries of all the books that I've worked on from the most recent to the earliest. As you can see, the list is starting to get to a reasonable length. This creates a fair amount of email that is time consuming to answer particularly as a lot of the questions are technical in nature. When this gets to 20 or so emails a day, things start to get into problems. I don't get a chance to answer everything particularly as I am also involved in higher priority work such as standards development. If sending me a question, can you please make it as short as possible. If its quick and I can dump out a 30 second reply, you are much more likely to get a response from me than one that says "why doesn't my code work?". BTW - If you see a book titled Advanced Java Networking or Real World Java 1.2 Networking with me as the author in the online bookstores, forget it. The first was a working title, the second was going to be the real title, but Sun decided to play tricks with me just after the manuscript was complete. (Java 2 Networking is now the real title.) As such it will never be published, so forget about it. Sometimes it seems the online stores just don't seem to keep up with everything.
Just as you get everything up to date, a new version of the software is released. I was just getting around to finishing off the JSDT 1.5 updates and now an EA release of 2.0 is available. Oh well, stay tuned... The Java Bible updates are almost complete. Now that we've had a long extension to the project due to one author dropping out, I've decided to rewrite one chapter rather than just a cosmetic update. That should be finished by the end of August. Before I even got started on the Core Java 3D book, I got roped into drafting the Java 3D chapters for the precursor book - Core Web3D. Having done that, it seems that my co-author is struggling to get everything done. That means I are now heading into writing everything! As a result the work on Core Java3D is getting slowly pushed back. No definite start date yet, but given the current work situation, my guess is not until mid October will serious work start.
Based on the extremely popular Core Java series of books from Prentice-Hall, this book starts an offshoot into the world of 3D graphics. The book gets its name from being the precursor into the series by introducing many of the technologies that may be available for adding 3D content to your web pages. Now before you write the book off as being useless, this book is aimed directly at the typical webmaster that needs to get in and tweak someone else's code to do what is needed. A fairly comprehensive overview of VRML, MPEG-4 and Java 3D are provided. Not only is simple installation information included, but also a guide to all of the APIs. For example, each technology has sections on how to tweak geometry, appearances and other artifacts like audio and combinations with other technologies. Core Web3D is not yet finished. This is my current project for writing so stay in touch for more information.
The Java Bible series is aimed at the beginner to intermediate programmer. Most of the book is devoted to introducing the various APIs available in the core of the Java library. Unlike the JDK 1.1 updates (which I was never involved in), the work for Java 2 is starting the book almost from scratch. Many of the original notes have been changed and updated to deal with the very different perspective that the latest versions use. The basic aim is to reduce the number of API lists and increase the amount of working code. To this end, we now cover more on threading, networking and making java run as fast as possible. As of the middle of August, the book is about 50% complete of the first draft. I have one chapter left to write - the multimedia chapter. There is no separate page for this yet. That will come once the book gets finalised and actually heads to press.
This latest is my first sole author effort. At the same time, it is also the first that I've written that is devoted primarily to the java programming language. I think it is now available although I haven't received my copies yet. I've got the page proofs for typo checking etc, but not the real books. Considering that I haven't received any email telling me the book sucks or there are errors, that must mean it hasn't hit the retail shelves yet. :) The book is primarily aimed at the intermediate to advanced Java programmer looking at how to use networking. In real world situations, a programmer has quite a few different choices on how to build a networked application. Java 2 adds a whole raft of new features making the choice of the programmer even more difficult. Without knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each API, an informed choice is difficult to achieve. The aim of the book is to walk you through the same project implemented using almost all of the standard Java networking APIs (JDBC and CORBA are not covered) so that you can appreciate how each handles the same task.
Co-authored with Bernie Roehl, this has become one of the standard tomes in the VRML programmer's shelf. The book is aimed at the high end applications end of VRML. We assume you can already write a basic static world and build on that by covering event model basics, scripting, external interfaces and build a number of toolkits and applications throughout the book. One of the enduring features is the amount of software that it generated and has since passed into the public domain, much of which may be found on this website.
Part of the Laura Lemay's Web Workshop series, this came out to co-incide with the release of the original VRML 2.0 specification in August 1996. It is aimed at the complete novice that may have written HTML pages and wishes to spice them up with something new. Now getting a little long in the tooth, it continues to sell reasonably well.
The ever popular unleashed series, I contributed a chapter devoted to VRML and Java combinations. Not really having the room to be able to really get my teeth stuck into it, it is restricted to introducing the basic APIs.
Another in the Unleashed series. This time it is the web publishing generic
book - actually the professional reference edition, not the standard pleb's
version
Not my best effort but the one that got me started in writing. Actually the chapter was a last minute request and was written before the VRML 2.0 spec had even been finalised and only very soon after Java had hit the market.
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