Professional Java
Chapter One
Key Java Language Features
and Libraries
Java's initial design opted to leave out many features that programmers knew from C++ and other
languages. This made programming and understanding Java a lot simpler since there are fewer
syntactic details. The less built into the language, the cleaner the code is. However, since some features
are useful and desired by programmers, the new JDK 5 release of Java introduced several
important features that were left out of the initial design of the language. Other changes make certain
code constructs easier to code, removing the need for repeating common blocks of code.
Please note that this book was written while some of these features are in flex, before they enter
into their final form. Therefore, certain information may not be accurate by the time this book is
published.
The first half of this chapter will explore the new language. The features are new to the language
features built into the language, giving you everything you need to know to make full use of these
additions. The second half of this chapter details certain key utility packages in the java.util
branch of th ... read full excerpt from Professional Java ebook
