Java™ Language Specification, Third Edition, The

Preface to the Third Edition

This edition of the Java™ Programming Language Specification represents the largest set of changes in the language’s history. Generics, annotations, asserts, autoboxing and unboxing, enum types, foreach loops, variable arity methods and static imports have all been added to the language recently. All but asserts are new to the 5.0 release of autumn 2004.

This third edition of The Java™ Language Specification reflects these developments. It integrates all the changes made to the Java programming language since the publication of the second edition in 2000.

The language has grown a great deal in these past four years. Unfortunately, it is unrealistic to shrink a commercially successful programming language - only to grow ...