Java Resources

Below you will find a number of Java resources in the following broad categories:

Sun Tools and Resources | Third-Party Resources | Third-Party Tools | Book Recommendations

Web Links

Sun's official Java page

Java 2 Standard Edition version 1.4 Overview

Java 2 Standard Edition version 1.4 Downloads -- where you can get the run-time environment, the software development kit, and documentation, at no charge.

Java 2 Enterprise Edition -- resources that provide tools to develop enterprise Java applications.

Sun's recommended Code Conventions for the Java Programming Language

The Java and Internet Glossary by Roedy Green

The Java Programmers' FAQ contains a number of common programming questions with their answers.

The Association of C and C++ (and Java) Users

The Unicode Home Page has resources for the Unicode international character standard which Java uses.

The Unicode Standard

The Eclipse Project is a free and open source Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that is highly customizable. The project originated at IBM, and is now actively supported by SuSE, Red Hat, Borland, Rational, and other companies.

jEdit is a free, open source editor written in Java. It is highly customizable, with user-defined key-commands, macros, and a plug-in architecture that allows you can write your own specialized modules or take advantage of an extensive library of free modules.

JUnit is an open source tool that helps programmers tightly integrate code development and testing in an automated fashion, thus leading to higher quality code.

Java in a Nutshell (4th Edition)

by David Flanagan

O'Reilly & Associates

This is not a good book to use to learn Java unless you are a very accomplished programmer. However it may be the best desktop reference available. When you've forgotten one of the intracacies of the language you'll be glad to have this book within arm's reach.

The first fourth of the book is organized as a brisk tutorial of the language, its core packages (the graphic and networking packages are in different books in this series), and Sun's free development tools. The remaining three-fourths is an API Quick Reference where each package and its classes are explained in more detail than provided in Sun's standard Java documentation.

Be sure to buy the Third Edition, as the earlier editions are out of date. I've owned each of the three editions, and if a fourth comes out, I'll buy it too.

Java Examples in a Nutshell: A Tutorial Companion to Java in a Nutshell

by David Flanagan

O'Reilly & Associates

This is a companion volume to Java in a Nutshell above containing examples of the concepts presented therein. In earlier editions the examples were interleaved within the book. But the Java package library grew, requiring more extensive documentation, and the Nutshell book needed to be split up. So the examples are in a separate volume.

Say more.

Java Foundation Classes in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference

by David Flanagan

O'Reilly & Associates

The next book in the Nutshell series. The focus on this books is display, primarily the graphical user interface of a Java application or applet.

The tutorial section occupies about 19% of the book, with the API Quick Reference the remaining 81% of the book. The tutorial section first discusses the two alternate graphics packages -- AWT and Swing and then goes on to discuss Java2D, printing, and drag-and-drop. The reference section provides extensive details on all the sub-packages and classes within java.applet, java.awt, and javax.swing.

Java Enterprise in a Nutshell (2nd Edition)

by David Flanagan, Jim Farley, William Crawford, and Kris Magnusson

O'Reilly & Associates

This is the third book in the Nutshell series. The focus here is on the variety of enterprise technologies available within the Java framework.

The tutorial section, although it occupies the first half of the book, is a little thin and won't give you a solid knowledge of the packages. However the reference section in the second half is worth the purchase price alone.

The tutorial section covers the following in individual chapter -- Java Database Connectivity (JDBC), Remote Method Invocation (RMI), Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) via Java Interface Description Language (IDL), Servlets, Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI), and Entertripse JavaBeans (EJB).

The reference section provides extensive details on all the sub-packages and classes within java.rmi, java.sql, javax.ejb, javax.jms, javax.naming, javax.servlet, javax.sql, javax.transaction, org.omg.CORBA, and org.omg.CosNaming. Phew!