Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal on the cover of Java in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition is a Javan tiger. It is the smallest of the eight subspecies of tiger and has the longest cheek whiskers, which form a short mane across the neck. The encroachment of the growing human population, along with increases in poaching, have led to the near-extinction of the Javan tiger. The Indonesian government has become involved in trying to preserve the tiger. It is to be hoped that the remaining subspecies of tiger will be helped by increasing awareness and stricter protections.

Tigers are the largest of all cats, weighing up to 660 pounds and with a body length of up to 9 feet. They are solitary animals and, unlike lions, hunt alone. Tigers prefer large prey, such as wild pigs, cattle, or deer. Tigers rarely attack humans, although attacks on humans have increased as the increasing human population more frequently comes into contact with tigers. Tiger attacks usually occur when the tiger feels that it or its young are being threatened. In such cases, the tiger almost never eats its human victim. There are some tigers, however, who have developed a taste for human flesh. This is a particularly bad problem in an area of India and Bangladesh called the Sunderbans. Matt Hutchinson was the production editor and copyeditor for Java in a Nutshell, Fourth Edition. Rachel Wheeler and Emily Quill provided quality control. Ellen Troutman-Zaig and Brenda Miller wrote the index. Lenny Muellner provided XML support.

Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. David Futato designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. The print version of this book was created by translating the Doc-Book XML markup of its source files into a set of gtroff macros using a filter developed at O'Reilly & Associates by Norman Walsh. Steve Talbott designed and wrote the underlying macro set on the basis of the GNU troff --gs macros; Lenny Muellner adapted them to XML and implemented the book design. The GNU groff text formatter Version 1.11.1 was used to generate PostScript output. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book; the code font is Constant Willison. The hierarchy diagrams that appear in the quick-reference section of this book were produced in encapsulated PostScript format by a Java program written by David Flanagan. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary.