Thoroughly entertaining, totally accessible, and completely up-to-date sixth edition of a Java classic.

Peter van der Linden is one of the world’s foremost computer book authors. He’s been in the computer industry for more than twenty-five years, working for companies ranging from start-ups to Apple and Sun Microsystems. van der Linden is also author of The Official Handbook of Practical Jokes (NAL-Penguin, 1991).

The first edition ofJust Javawas one of the earliest books to accompany the original release of Java in 1996. The launch of Java coincided with the explosion of interest in the web and the net which, in turn, drove technology forward at a frantic pace. People talked about "Internet time," which meant three things to me in Silicon Valley: there was immense pressure to rapidly create new hardware and software products; everyone wrote software to display stock prices on their desktops and cell phones; you were forgiven for not showering if you fell asleep at your desk after midnight and woke up there the next morning. Times have changed, but software productivity remains a big reason behind Java's popularity. Over the last eight years Java has had six major releases, averaging one about every 18 months. With each of these releases, there has been a new edition ofJust Javato describe and explain the technology. This is a remarkable pace of development for a programming system, particularly when Sun keeps such an emphasis on backward compatibility and portability. The Java 1.2 release was a significant one, bundling major functionality improvements like the collection classes and the Swing GUI library. Java 1.3 and 1.4 were comparatively smaller, although 1.4 did bring a new statement ("assert") into the language. Two and a half years in the making, Java 1.5 is the biggest version yet. It is bigger and more significant than jdk 1.2. Sun will probably rename Java 1.5 to some awkward and confusing name using two sets of numbers, like "Java 2 Mega-edition v1.5 fab-o-lux". Whatever they call it, think of Java 1.5 as "Java 3". There are also the traditional bug-fix, library and performance improvements, including some exciting optimizations for desktop applications.Over the years, I've put a lot of hard work into unlocking the changes in Java, so you don't have to. You're looking at the results of that effort: the sixth edition ofJust Java. I'm confident you'll find it easy to read, and packed with the information you need. I hope that you'll want a copy for yourself. But if not, I want you to put it back on the shelf, only (as my friend Alan Abel suggested) in a more prominent position. P.