CIS 4930 (Programming in Java):
Useful Links and Other Resources

Useful links

Sun's Java home page.
Sun's Java Development Kit, including a copy of the online documentation.
Sun's Java Developer Connection, including among other things the "bug parade" of known problems with Sun's JDK. You have to register, but it's free.
Java white papers describing Java's design goals.
JavaWorld online magazine.
Java Programmers FAQ (frequently-asked questions, with answers -- opinionated but useful).
NCSA Beginner's Guide to HTML.

Other online resources

Usenet newsgroups comp.lang.java.*.
- If you're not familiar with Usenet news:
  - Netscape's Web site has a primer on Usenet news, including directions for reading news with Netscape. Do read the "read this first" pages first. Many other programs are available for reading news, depending on your environment, but this is one place to start.
  - You can also use Deja News to scan archived Usenet newsgroups.
- Warning: Posts that appear to be asking people to do your homework for you are not a good idea -- we read these newsgroups too.

Books

Books about Java

Any bookstore that carries technical books will probably have a wide variety of books on Java. Here are a few that seem good, or at least widely recommended.

The Java Programming Language (Second Edition); Ken Arnold and James Gosling; Addison-Wesley; 1997. Gosling is credited (on the book's back cover) as the creator of Java, so this is pretty authoritative and generally seems very solid. I've used this book to help prepare several lectures so far.
Java in a Nutshell (Second Edition); David Flanagan; O'Reilly & Associates; 1997. The O'Reilly Nutshell books seem to be very popular, and this one contains a hard-copy version of the Core API specification.

Note: A few months ago many books didn't cover the many and important differences between the latest release of Java (1.1) and earlier releases. That's changing, but before buying a book be sure it addresses the current release.

Books on object-oriented design

Again, there are many books on object-oriented design. One that's mentioned time after time is the following.