Using This Book

This book divides roughly into three sections:

• Chapters 1 and 2 provide a basic introduction to Java concepts and a tutorial to give you a jump start on Java programming.

• Chapters 3 through 6 discuss tools for working with Java (the compiler, the interpreter, HTML support, etc.) and the language itself. Chapter 6, Threads covers the language's thread facilities, which should be of particular interest to advanced programmers.

• Chapters 7 through 14 discuss the class libraries. Chapter 7, Basic Utility Classes covers basic utilities; Chapter 8, Input/Output Facilities covers I/O facilities; Chapter 9, Network Programming covers networking; and Chapters 10 through 14 cover the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT), which provides graphics and graphic user interface (GUI) support.

If you're like us, you don't read books from front to back. If you are really like us, you usually don't read the preface at all. However, on the off chance that you will see this in time, here are a few suggestions.

If you are an experienced programmer who has to learn Java in the next five minutes, you are probably looking for the examples. You might want to start by glancing at the tutorial in Chapter 2, A First Applet. If that doesn't float your boat, you should at least look at the information in Chapter 3, Tools of the Trade, which tells you how to use the co