The Java Tutorial: A Short Course on the Basics

The Java® Tutorial, Fifth Edition, is based on Release 7 of the Java Platform Standard Edition. This revised and updated edition introduces the new features added to the platform, including a section on NIO.2, the new file I/O API, and information on migrating legacy code to the new API. The deployment coverage has also been expanded, with new chapters such as “Doing More with Rich Internet Applications” and “Deployment in Depth,” and a section on the fork/join feature has been added to the chapter on concurrency. Information reflecting Project Coin developments, including the new try-with-resources statement, the ability to catch more than one type of exception with a single exception handler, support for binary literals, and diamond syntax, which results in cleaner generics code, has been added where appropriate. The chapters covering generics, Java Web Start, and applets have also been updated. In addition, if you plan to take one of the Java SE 7 certification exams, this guide can help. A special appendix, “Preparing for Java Programming Language Certification,” lists the three exams available, details the items covered on each exam, and provides cross-references to where more information about each topic appears in the text. All of the material has been thoroughly reviewed by members of Oracle Java engineering to ensure that the information is accurate and up to date.

Sharon Biocca Zakhour is a principal technical writer at Oracle Corporation, and was formerly at Sun Microsystems. She has contributed to Java SE platform documentation for more than twelve years, including The Java ™ Tutorial, Fourth Edition, (Addison-Wesley, 2007), and The JFC Swing Tutorial, Second Edition (Addison-Wesley, 2004). She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a B.A. in computer science, and has worked as a programmer, developer support engineer, and technical writer for thirty years.

Sowmya Kannan was previously a principal technical writer at Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems. She is currently the manager of the Java SE documentation team, and has more than fifteen years of experience as a technical writer and developer of middleware and web applications.

Raymond Gallardo is a technical writer for Oracle Corporation. Previous engagements include college instructor, technical writer for IBM, and bicycle courier. He earned his B.Sc. in computer science and English from the University of Toronto and his M.A. in creative writing from The City College of New York.