JavaServer Faces

Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.

The animal on the cover of JavaServer Faces is a Barbary ape ( Macaca sylvanus ). Despite its name, the Barbary ape is a monkey found in Algeria, Gibraltar, and Morocco, on the plains and in cedar and oak forests. Barbary apes are equally comfortable on the ground and in the trees. These tail-less macaques live in groups with multiple adults led by dominant females. Unlike most other monkeys, the males play an active role in caring for and playing with the young. Their fur is yellowish grey and brown with a pale underside; their diet consists of fruit, leaves, roots, and insects.

Barbary apes have played an interesting role in the political history of their environment: legend has it that Britain will never lose control of the Rock of Gibraltar while the Barbary apes remain in residence. For a time, the Barbary apes on Gibraltar were the responsiblity of the British Army; they even received medical care from the military hospital. Winston Churchill replenished the monkeys’ population in 1942. The Barbary apes are Europe’s only free-range monkeys, and their homes (Gibraltar, Morocco, and Algeria) have historically functioned as politically fraught transition areas between Europe and the Middle East. Apparently, the Barbary apes’ ...