Core Java™ 2 Volume II - Advanced Features, Seventh Edition

Collection Interfaces

Before the release of JDK 1.2, the standard library supplied only a small set of classes for the most useful data structures: Vector, Stack, Hashtable, BitSet, and the Enumeration interface that provides an abstract mechanism for visiting elements in an arbitrary container. That was certainly a wise choice—it takes time and skill to come up with a comprehensive collection class library.

With the advent of JDK 1.2, the designers felt that the time had come to roll out a full-fledged set of data structures. They faced a number of conflicting design decisions. They wanted the library to be small and easy to learn. They did not want the complexity of the “Standard Template Library” (or STL) of C++, but they wanted the benefit ...