Java Cookbook, 3rd Edition

Afterword

Writing—and updating—this book has been a humbling experience. It has taken far longer than I had predicted, or than I would like to admit. And, of course, it’s not finished yet. Despite my best efforts and those of the technical reviewers, editors, and many other talented folks, a book this size is bound to contain errors, omissions, and passages that are less clear than they might be. Do let us know if you happen across any of these things; you can enter them at the book’s errata page. Subsequent editions will incorporate changes sent in by readers just like you!

It has been said that you don’t really know something until you’ve taught it. I have found this true of lecturing, and find it equally true of writing.

I tell my students that when Java was very young, it was possible for one person to study hard and know almost everything about Java. After a release or two, this was no longer true. Today, nobody in his or her right mind would seriously claim to “know all about Java”—if they do, it should cause your “bogosity” detector to go off at full volume. And the amount you need to know keeps growing. How can you keep up? Java books? Java magazines? Java courses? Conferences? There is no single answer; all of these are useful to some people. Oracle and others have programs that you should be aware of:

• JavaOne, the annual Java conference.
• The Oracle Java Technology Network, a free web-based service for getting the latest APIs, news, and views.
• Over Java’s lifetime, the publishing industry has changed a lot. There used to be several Java-related magazines published in print, some of whose articles would appear on the Web. Today there are, so far as I know, no print magazines dedicated to Java. Oracle currently (2014) publishes the online-only Java Magazine every two months with technical articles on many aspects of Java; see the magazine’s website to download a PDF of the latest issue.
• The Java Community Process, the home of Java standardization and enhancement
• The OpenJDK community maintains and builds the open source version of the “official” JDK
• O’Reilly books and conferences are among the very best available!
• I keep my own list of Java Resources that I update sporadically, on my Java site; follow the link to Java Resources.
• The most interesting advanced topic discussions show up in Heinz Kabutz’s Java Specialists Newsletter.

There is no end of Java APIs to learn about. And there are still more books to be written . . . and read.