How difficult is it to learn Java SE 6 from J2SE 5.0?

Question

I'm new here, and I have a quick question that I hope someone can help me out with.

I'm about to start learning Java and I'm looking for a good textbook to use. I found that "Introduction to Java Programming" by Y. Daniel Liang is highly rated, but I was wondering if I could get away with using the older 6th (July 22, 2006) or 7th (May 12, 2008) edition, rather than the most current one from 2010. If I do get the 6th edition, would there be any real challenge in learning the updates released since it was published? And even if I do get the 7th or 8th editions, wouldn't I eventually have to keep playing catch-up as more and more updates are released?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You're not going to find any fundamental differences if you're just starting to learn Java. An older book will still be very relevant as long as it covers Java 5. I wouldn't worry about getting the absolute latest if you can get a better deal on an older revision of the book. As for Java 6, it doesn't introduce a huge amount of change that affects programmers over Java 5. There are a few new things that you don't need to worry about right now. Java 5 on the other hand introduced many new concepts that you'll definitely want to get familiar with.