By Mark Grand
This book is a reference manual for the Java programming language; it covers Version 1.1 of the Java language. It provides a complete description of all of the constructs in the language, so that programmers can write Java programs that function exactly as expected. This book is not meant to teach you the Java language, although you could probably use it for that purpose if you are already fluent in a number of other programming languages.
This is an exciting time in the development of Java. Version 1.1 is a huge new release that more than doubles the size of the core Java APIs. Fortunately, the Java language itself contains relatively few changes for Java 1.1. The new features of the language are significant, however, both in terms of the useful functionality and the elegance they add to the language. This book covers all of the new language constructs in Java 1.1. Here's a quick list of the new features:
- Inner classes, which include nested top-level classes and interfaces, member classes, local classes, and anonymous classes
- final local variables, method parameters, and catch clause parameters
- Instance initializers
- Blank finals, or final variable declarations that do not include initializers
- Class literals for obtaining Class objects
- Anonymous arrays, or arrays created and initialized without a variable initializer