Making Sense of the Java Classes & Tools: Collection Interfaces, CWhat's New in the Java SE 6 Platform Beta 2, and More

Welcome to the Java Technology Fundamentals Newsletter

This monthly newsletter provides a way for you to learn the basics of the Java programming language, discover new resources, and keep up-to-date on the latest additions to Sun Developer Network's New to Java Center.

Note: For the code in this issue of Fundamentals to compile, you need to use the JDK 5.0 software.

This issue covers:

What Do You Want to Read in Java Technology Fundamentals
Making Sense of the Java Classes & Tools
Java Bits
What's New in the Java SE 6 Platform Beta 2
What's New in the Sun Java Studio Creator IDE
Tutorials and Tips From NetBeans.org
Sun's Technology Courses
Sun Developer Expert Assistance
Free Developer Tools
For More Information

The Java Technology Fundamentals newsletter teaches the basics of Java platform programming and ways to use specific classes, and it keeps you up-to-date on the latest tools and courses.

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The core collection interfaces encapsulate different types of collections, which are shown in the following figure. These interfaces allow collections to be manipulated independently of the details of their representation. Core collection interfaces are the foundation of the Java Collections Framework. As you can see in the figure, the core collection interfaces form a hierarchy.

A Set is a special kind of Collection, a SortedSet is a special kind of Set, and so forth. Note also that the hierarchy consists of two distinct trees -- a Map is not a true Collection.

Note that all the core collection interfaces are generic. For example, this is the declaration of the Collection interface:

public interface Collection...

The syntax tells you that the interface is generic. When you declare a Collection instance, you can and should specify the type of object contained in the collection. Specifying the type allows the compiler to verify (at compile-time) that the type of object you put into the collection is correct, thus reducing errors at runtime. For information on generic types, see the Generics section in this tutorial's Collections trail.

When you understand how to use these interfaces, you will know most of what there is to know about the Java Collections Framework. This chapter discusses general guidelines for effective use of the interfaces, including when to use which interface. You'll also learn programming idioms for each interface to help you get the most out of it.

Read the rest of the lesson
 

If you're curious about how the Java programming language came to be designed, this paper explains Sun's motives and reasoning behind the platform.

The Java programming language and environment is designed to solve a number of problems in modern programming practice. Java started as part of a larger project to develop advanced software for consumer electronics. These devices are small, reliable, portable, distributed, real-time embedded systems. When we started the project we intended to use C++ but encountered a number of problems. Initially, these were just compiler technology problems, but as time passed, more problems emerged that were best solved by changing the language.

Java

Java: A simple, object-oriented, network-savvy, interpreted, robust, secure, architecture neutral, portable, high- performance, multithreaded, dynamic language.

One way to characterize a system is with a set of buzzwords. We use a standard set of them in describing Java. Here's an explanation of what we mean by those buzzwords and the problems we were trying to solve.

Archimedes Inc. is a fictitious software company that produces software to teach about basic physics. This software is designed to interact with the user, providing not only text and illustrations in the manner of a traditional textbook but also a set of software lab benches on which to set up experiments and simulate their behavior. The most basic experiment allows students to put together levers and pulleys and see how they act. The italicized narrative of the trials and tribulations of the Archimedes designers is used here to provide examples of Java programming-language concepts.

Simple

We wanted to build a system that could be programmed easily without a lot of esoteric training and that leveraged today's standard practice. Most programmers working these days use C, and most programmers doing object-oriented programming use C++. So even though we found that C++ was unsuitable, we designed Java as closely to C++ as possible in order to make the system more comprehensible.

Java omits many rarely used, poorly understood, confusing features of C++ that in our experience bring more grief than benefit. These omitted features primarily consist of operator overloading (although the Java language does have method overloading), multiple inheritance, and extensive automatic coercions.

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Version 6 of the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE), is currently in its second beta release -- which is right on track for moving along to its general release this fall. So here are the top 10 things you need to know about it, if you're still hovering hesitantly over that Beta 2 Download Page link. Subsequent articles will provide more in-depth information.

Read this article
 

This tutorial takes you through the process of using the Sun Java Studio Creator integrated development environment (IDE) to build a web application that can create, retrieve, update, and delete database rows.

The application provides a drop-down list of master data along with a synchronized detail table. Users can add to, update, and delete the records in the detail table and from its associated database.

This tutorial uses many concepts introduced in other more basic tutorials. If you do not have basic knowledge of the IDE and its design components, consider first reading introductory tutorials, such as Getting Started With Sun Java Studio Creator, Using Virtual Forms, and Using Databound Components to Access Databases.

Read the tutorial
 

This tutorial teaches you how to build a simple GUI with back-end functionality. It is geared to the beginner and introduces the basic construction of a graphical user interface (GUI) with functionality. A basic understanding of the Java programming language is required.

This basic tutorial takes the approach of teaching programming from the GUI-development perspective.

• The Matisse package is used to facilitate the GUI development.
• Matisse is available in the NetBeans 5.0 IDE.
• We will learn how to develop a GUI and then add functionality to the buttons used.

This document takes you through the fundamental concept of GUI creation and takes the approach taken in many self-learning books. We will work through the layout and design of a GUI and add a few buttons and text boxes. The text boxes will be used for receiving user input and also for displaying the program output. The button will initiate the functionality built into the front end. The application we create will be a simple but functional calculator.

Read the tutorial and do the exercises: http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/gui-functionality.html

Read the tutorial and do the exercises

Purchase a voucher for most Java technology or Solaris OS certification exams between July 1 and August 15, 2006, and should you need it, you can take the exam one additional time for free. You must take the retake exam by August 15, 2007. This offer is available in most countries around the world.

Purchase your voucher:
 

Need help with a programming problem? The Sun Developer Expert Assistance program offers the following:

• Diagnostic advice
• Sanity check on coding approach
• Workarounds to current problems
• Guidance on best practices
• Pointers to relevant sample applications and documentation that address the issue

Ask a question about any aspect of the supported products and technologies shown, and an engineer will respond to you by email within 24 hours, either with an answer or a commitment to track down the information.

Supported Products and Technologies

• NetBeans 5.0 IDE
• J2SE 1.4.2, 5.0
• Sun Java Studio Creator 2 IDE
• J2EE SDK 5.0 (Sun AS 9)
• Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7/8

Learn more

• The Collections Framework
• Language Essentials: Introduction
• Java Platform, Standard Edition 6 API Specification DRAFT beta2-b86
• Download the Java SE platform.
• Sun Java Studio Creator IDE
• Download the NetBeans 5.0 IDE

Sun is offering the award-winning Sun Java Studio Enterprise and Sun Java Studio Creator IDEs at no cost to all developers worldwide who join Sun Developer Network (SDN).

Get your free tools.