http://www.roseindia.net

[amar]

Java is useful as a VB replacement, and it is fairy portable between Linux and Windows environment.

I believe speed usually does not matter much, if we are working with databases -- the main Java application area. JDK 1.2 is now available for Linux, so you can debug something is (supposedly) better GUI-based Windows environment and run on Linux without much troubles. Please note that Java 1.2 was recently renamed into Java 2 and is the first decent version of the language. Previous versions (1.0 and 1.1) were more like a proof of concept, than production environments.

There is a real glut of Java books. Only in 1999 almost a hundred was already published. The biggest problem with books on Java is that many of them were rushed out the door. It usually make sense to look for the second edition of the book -- it's at least some hope that second time the author corrected most of the errors in the first edition. Also with Java 1.2, titles published, say, before 1999 that cover v. 1.1 or v. 1.0 should be discounted 50% or more. In any case it's not recommended to buy a book not published before second half of 1998, if you get just 20% discount.

for read more information:
http://www.softpanorama.org/Bookshelf/java.shtml