Preface
Professional Java Enterprise Java Commercial Java
These are all terms that are commonplace in programming discussions these days—and for good reason. Gone are the days when Java was considered a toy language for creating web games, futilely trying to catch up to its “big brothers,” C and C++. While AWT and Swing (and now SWT) are important parts of the Java language, Java has also evolved to take on more far-ranging tasks—database interaction, financial management, e-commerce, and more. Its speed is comparable to C, and its APIs are farreaching. As a result, the core language has undergone significant stabilization, and Java 1.3, and then 1.4, were largely steps towards maturing the platform, rather than radically changing it.
Enter Java 5.0—code-named Tiger. Actually, it’s Java 5, version 1.5. Well, it’s the J2SE, which I suppose makes it Java 2, Standard Edition, 5, version 1.5. Confusing enough for you? Thankfully, whatever the thing is called, the additions are worthy of all the hubbub; this isn’t your father’s Java (or to be more accurate, it’s not your slightly older brother’s Java) anymore.
Looking more like a completely new product than just a revision of an older language, Tiger is chock-full of dramatic changes to what you know as simply Java. You can’t just read through the release notes and figure this one out; and since the new features are a lot more important than all the oddities about its versioning, I’ll just call it Tiger throughout ...
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