The Java language/platform

Introduction

This page contains useful links to online Java resources. Also see my page on Swing resources for building GUIs with Java. And google works fine for virtually any kind of question you might have about the Java language.

Books -- Hardcopy and on-line

At last count there were over 2,000 books (!) on the Java language, so picking out a few to suggest here is not easy!

My first suggestion is a book that is available in its entirety online and also in hardcopy. It is Sun's The Java(TM) Tutorial: A Short Course on the Basics (3rd Edition) by Mary Campione, Kathy Walrath, and Alison Huml, 3rd edition (Addison-Wesley, 2000). Here is a link to the online version. That page also includes tutorials on a number of specialized Java topics.

Here's the complete online edition of Bruce Eckel's Thinking In Java 3rd Edition.

Note that Eckel finished the 3rd and final edition of his book in November 2002. It is available for free download from his website and/or you can buy it in hardcopy.

• O'Reilly publishes an entire series of Java books. I use their Java in a Nutshell as a useful reference guide. About one-third of the book introduces you to the language and the other two-thirds is an API quick-reference. Java graphics.


• Our Snell Library has over 200 books on Java, many quite recent. Search here here for "java AND programming". The great majority of them have call numbers starting with QA76.73.


• Beyond these, Boston is replete with large and high-quality bookstores. There's a Barnes & Noble in the Prudential Center nearby, for example. Examining on-line booklists, especially when ranked by reviews or by best selling ratings, can be useful also.

On-line reference materials

• Google is the best we have these days. Here's a search for "java" via google.com.


• Sun Microsystems who developed the Java language publish their own series of Java books (through Addison-Wesley publishers). Many of these books are available on-line free, in their entirety. Information on the books and links to the on-line versions are available here. Scroll down to the section "Learning the Java Programming Language".


• If you would like to read a concise book on the structure of the Java language, look at this online: The Java Language Specification, 2nd Edition, by James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy Steele, and Gilad Bracha.


• The basic command-line tools such as java, javac and the like are described here.


• The API for the current Java version (1.4.2 is installed in CCIS) is here.


• Sun's Java Standard Edition Platform Documentation page includes links to the APIs as well as to the on-line Java Tutorial, which has many "trails" on various topic areas.


• A major source for developers is Sun's Documentation and Training page.


• Marty Hall at Johns Hopkins University has assembled a huge collection of links to all sorts of Java resources. He's also the author of a well-respected Java book.

Java Swing -- Building GUIs

Swing is a large collection of packages that enable you to build rich and sophisticated GUIs. Here is my page of Swing resources.

Javadoc -- Generating APIs from your comments

Javadoc is one of the Java platform utilities that will generate a collection of pages for you from your comments in your source code. The comments must be of a certain form and appear in right places for this to work. Here is Futrelle's page on Javadoc.

A note on timers for general applications and for Swing (graphics)

Here's a brief note I've composed about timers that are useful for putting out output at a modest and readable rate, for producing delays and for performing the repeated actions at specific intervals in animation.

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