When I published my somewhat critical review of "Hardcore Java", I kind of expected that the author would drop into the Book Reviews forum at Javaranch.com to have a friendly discussion about the book.

During the discussion, I have found that Robert Simmons Jr is indeed a very nice guy who is truly open to critics and gladly accepts *constructive* comments, which is not true of all authors out there. An author's openness to critics and comments is undoubtedly an important fact to take into account when reviewing a book. Unfortunately, you often get to know the man after reading his first book...

In the discussion, Robert said that he would include a chapter on classloaders, another on package management and some other cool stuff in the second edition, should there be one. I'm trully looking forward to reading that new stuff :) In the meantime, Vivek has opened the good old debate on the final keyword... You are welcome to share your thoughts about that.