Hey! I'm pretty new to programming, and since I'm a little too young to join any sort of course, decided to self-teach myself, and decided to start off OO programming through Java, seeing as I'll be picking up Computer Science next year as a subject, and it has quite some Java involved. I never really considered learning Java (I hate how resource hungry some java programs can be ) but now I might pick up a good book to give myself a head start in Java. I'm not looking for a small introductory guide, and neither am I a complete novice, I got some experience with C and PHP, but nothing too big, especially on PHP, so a nice comprehensive book would do the job well. I did some searching around and found two books that seem to explain everything extremely well, and also give you exercises to work on (Which is one of the main things I am looking for, since I'm self teaching myself); Big Java by Horstmann and Java How to Program by Deitel.

Now I've read that Big Java was more well suited for use in class, but seems that it comes with tons of exercises and an interesting random fact is thrown in every now and then, which is all good. And Deitel's book also comes with tons of exercises, and mainly focuses on Java, and is also bigger and from the looks of the insides, more complete.

So was wondering if anyone here has any experiences with any of the two books, would really appreciate any suggestions on which one to take And if your gonna post something about Head First Java, yes I have taken a look at it, and although I must have to admit, it looks like a great book, it's not really my taste...

Thanks! (Just realized how long of a post this is, sorry xD)