I noticed that there's yet another awesome review of "NetBeans Platform for Beginners" on its feedback page, by Peter Hansson:
I've just finished a vacation where I took "NetBeans Platform for Beginners" with me in Kindle format. I've previously read Heiko's book, I've written a NB platform app or two and I still found your book full of insight that I wish I've had earlier on. Where a lot of the other books and online tutorials fail is in explaining WHY a certain feature of the platform looks the way it does. What was the intent from the API author? What can it be used for? What is the benefit? This is the area where I think your book excels. I also like your clear no-nonsense language.
Skipping over a display problem on Kindle, which the authors can't be blamed for and I'm sure they're working to resolve, how does the book compare to the other established books in this area?
I was hesitant at first to buy the book. I already had Heiko's book (in hardcopy) and the title of Walter and Jason's book threw me off a little (the word "beginner"). The book for me has been worth every penny and I'm looking forward to other NB related stuff from the authors. I've used Heiko's book a lot and I would still recommend it but I would say that if you only have money for one book then it should be "NetBeans Platform for Beginners". No doubt!
Want to create serious applications on the Java desktop too and need an awesome book, with great examples, and lots of explanations, to get you started? Here it is:
https://leanpub.com/nbp4beginners
Tip: Buy the book together with "Exercisis in Porting to the NetBeans Platform", which recently had a great new addition added to it, exercise 3, which shows a pretty thorough porting scenario with a real application as its starting point.