Head First Java

I never had the enthu to master any language. Thou I was like the jack of all trades and sinbad of all seas, I never mastered any damn language but I knew most of them. I knew to survive. But, doing my masters I wanted to master atleast one language. A friend of mine suggested "Head First Java" by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates before I came to the US. I never touched the book since I bought it.

My first big assignment was to create a Secure chat system in unix. I started working in C since I always felt, sockets in C were cool. But looking at the complexity of implementing DES in CBC mode, SHA-1, modified kerberos and what not in security concepts :P, we(me and Vishy) decided to work in java. But then I was blank in java, so caught hold of the book I mentioned in the above para. It changed my coding life and my view about java, thats all i would say.

Even now I cherish reading that lovely book. Go get a copy of that.