Did you actually try the JLS?   It's available as book as well as online:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/

HTH

   robert

The thing which I discovered first was that its best not to focus on 1 set of
documentation but check several and try to combine the information you get from
them.

But most of all I considered it very important to become familiar with the JDK
documentation (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/index.html). I'm not just
talking about the several guides, but also the API specifications. While this
may sound obvious I noticed that once I grasped some of the Java basics (i.e.:
class, inheritance, abstract, field, method, constructor) the JDK docs also
started making more sense. And once you reached that things suddenly become a
lot easier.

So, my favorite source(s) of documentation...

The official JDK documentation. Not only nice as reference, but also includes
some very good guides:

    http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/

Well, common reference material. Basicly a collection which also includes the
JDK documentation I guess. Still, a valuable resource IMO.

    http://java.sun.com/reference/

The official tutorials, ideal for studying but IMO makes good reference as
well. Whats more; you can download these:

    http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/

I really like this one, I even downloaded it and spend a few hours hacking
untill I finally got it working on my Intranet. It may not teach you much but
in my opinion it does give you a very good overview and whats more; when you're
looking for certain topics (say JINI) then this can make a nice starting point.
Its index helped me several times:

http://java.sun.com/developer/onlineTraining/new2java/javamap/intro.html

I guess a good overall starting place is
http://java.sun.com/learning/new2java/index.html, the 'New to Java centre'.

As to books..  I like the O'Reilly Java books as well, but just in combination
with what I already mentioned. Two books which I skimmed quite a few times now
are 'Java Language Reference' and to get me started a little better I bought
'Java in a nutshell'. The book does have some pages on "how to start" and "how
to begin", but its setup makes it rather easy to quickly find the information
you need at that time. Whether it be a section on Arrays or Garbage collection.

Hope this helps some.

Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote on Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:37:52 +0000:

Hi, Robert and Peter!

Thanks for the tips!  I had a look at the JLS and JDK documentation.
Both of them are a bit heavy for what I need, though it's good to know
where to come back to if I ever start hacking Java.

In the end, I had a look round a large bookshop yesterday afternoon and
bought the snappily titled "Java 2 v5.0 Tiger New Features" by Herbert
Schildt.  It's reasonably slim, yet still readable.  The chapter on
generics is around 50 pages long, and it's readable without being too
prolix.

Again, thanks for your replies!