Java Cookbook • Ian Darwin & Jeanne Boyarsky

This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club.http://gotopia.tech/bookclubIan F. Darwin - Java, Android & Unix Developer, Trainer, Mentor & Author of "Java Cookbook"Jeanne Boyarsky - Oracle Java Champion, Co-Author of "Real-World Java" & "OCP 21 Java Cert Book"Check out more here:https://gotopia.tech/episodes/438RESOURCESIanhttps://fosstodon.org/@IanDarwinhttps://x.com/Ian_Darwinhttps://github.com/IanDarwinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/idarwinhttps://www.darwinsys.comJeannehttps://bsky.app/profile/jeanneboyarsky.bsky.socialhttps://mastodon.social/@jeanneboyarskyhttps://x.com/jeanneboyarskyhttps://github.com/boyarskyhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-boyarskyhttps://sites.google.com/view/jeanneboyarskyhttps://www.selikoff.netLinkshttps://javacookbook.orghttps://dev.java/community/jcsDESCRIPTIONIn this GOTO Book Club, Java Champion Jeanne Boyarsky interviews Ian F. Darwin — author of one of Java's most enduring reference books, Java Cookbook, now in its fifth edition covering up to Java 25. The conversation traces Ian's extraordinary journey: from writing Java's first commercial training course outside of Sun Microsystems, to meeting Tim O'Reilly at a Unix conference and handing him a chapter on lint, to delivering a class in Houston where the entire room had just been laid off and were using the course as their golden handshake into a new career. Ian talks about the philosophy behind the book — culling a peak 900-page beast down to a tight 600 pages, anchoring tool choices on proven, battle-tested picks like JUnit, Mockito, and logging — and shares his three favourite chapters: Regular Expressions, Object-Oriented Techniques, and Reflection.The conversation gets sharply honest about AI and the future of the industry. Ian — who uses Claude as his coding assistant and does vibe code — warns that his greatest fear isn't AI taking over the world, but something subtler and more dangerous: companies stopping junior hires because AI can do the work, leaving no one to grow into the deep expertise that retires with the current generation. The parallel risk for books is equally candid: AI was trained on older editions, so the fifth edition is genuinely new and un-scraped territory.His advice for anyone who has learned the basics of Java?Don't ask an AI — buy the cookbook, save yourself years of trial and error, and for goodness' sake, read the code before you deploy it. "It's like building an airplane and putting passengers on it without flight testing."RECOMMENDED BOOKSIan F. Darwin • Java Cookbook 5th ed. • https://amzn.to/3QH0NZyIan F. Darwin • Java Cookbook 1st ed. • https://amzn.to/4sUpPlLIan F. Darwin • Checking C Programs with Lint • https://amzn.to/3Q2C69YVictor Grazi & Jeanne Boyarsky • Real-World Java • https://amzn.to/4oCEeBRJeanne Boyarsky & Scott Selikoff • OCP 21 Java Cert Book • https://amzn.to/4lF8OICBlueskyInstagramLinkedInFacebookCHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUSJoin this channel to get early access to videos & other perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/joinLooking for a unique learning experience?Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.techSUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted daily!