Thinking in Java, 3rd ed. Revision 4.0 - Contents

• Preface to the 3rd edition
• Java 2, JDK 1.4

• Prerequisites
• Learning Java
• Goals
• JDK HTML documentation
• Chapters
• Exercises
• The CD ROM
• Source code
• Coding standards
• Java versions
• Errors
• Note on the cover design
• Acknowledgements

• The progress of abstraction
• An object has an interface
• An object provides services
• The hidden implementation
• Reusing the implementation
• Inheritance: reusing the interface
• Is-a vs. is-like-a relationships
• Interchangeable objects with polymorphism
• Abstract base classes and interfaces
• Object creation, use & lifetimes
• Collections and iterators
• The singly rooted hierarchy
• Downcasting vs. templates/generics
• Ensuring proper cleanup
• Garbage collectors vs. efficiency and flexibility
• Exception handling: dealing with errors
• Concurrency
• Persistence
• Java and the Internet
• What is the Web?
• Client/Server computing
• The Web as a giant server
• Client-side programming
• Plug-ins
• Scripting languages
• Java
• .NET and C#
• Security
• Internet vs. intranet
• Server-side programming
• Applications
• Why Java succeeds
• Systems are easier to express and understand
• Maximal leverage with libraries
• Error handling
• Programming in the large
• Java vs. C++?
• Summary

• You manipulate objects with references
• You must create all the objects
• Where storage lives
• Special case: primitive types
• High-precision numbers
• Arrays in Java
• You never need to destroy an object
• Scoping
• Scope of objects
• Creating new data types: class
• Fields and methods
• Default values for primitive members
• Methods, arguments, and return values
• The argument list
• Building a Java program
• Name visibility
• Using other components
• The static keyword
• Your first Java program
• Compiling and running
• Comments and embedded documentation
• Comment documentation
• Syntax
• Embedded HTML
• Some example tags
• @see: referring to other classes
• {@link package.class#member label}
• {@docRoot}
• {@inheritDoc} 
• @version
• @author
• @since
• @param
• @return
• @throws
• @deprecated
• Documentation example
• Coding style
• Summary
• Exercises

• Using Java operators
• Precedence
• Assignment
• Aliasing during method calls
• Mathematical operators
• Regular expressions
• Unary minus and plus operators
• Auto increment and decrement
• Relational operators
• Testing object equivalence
• Logical operators
• Short-circuiting
• Bitwise operators
• Shift operators
• Ternary if-else operator
• The comma operator
• String operator +
• Common pitfalls when using operators
• Casting operators
• Literals
• Promotion
• Java has no “sizeof”
• Precedence revisited
• A compendium of operators
• Execution control
• true and false
• if-else
• return
• Iteration
• do-while
• for
• The comma operator
• break and continue
• The infamous “goto”
• switch
• Calculation details
• Summary
• Exercises

• Guaranteed initialization with the constructor
• Method overloading
• Distinguishing overloaded methods
• Overloading with primitives
• Overloading on return values
• Default constructors
• The this keyword
• Calling constructors from constructors
• The meaning of static
• Cleanup: finalization and garbage collection
• What is finalize( ) for?
• You must perform cleanup
• The termination condition
• How a garbage collector works
• Member initialization
• Specifying initialization
• Constructor initialization
• Order of initialization
• Static data initialization
• Explicit static initialization
• Non-static instance initialization
• Array initialization
• Multidimensional arrays
• Summary
• Exercises

• package: the library unit
• Creating unique package names
• Collisions
• A custom tool library
• Using imports to change behavior
• Package caveat
• Java access specifiers
• Package access
• public: interface access
• The default package
• private: you can’t touch that!
• protected: inheritance access
• Interface and implementation
• Class access
• Summary
• Exercises

• Composition syntax
• Inheritance syntax
• Initializing the base class
• Constructors with arguments
• Catching base constructor exceptions
• Combining composition and inheritance
• Guaranteeing proper cleanup
• Name hiding
• Choosing composition vs. inheritance
• protected
• Incremental development
• Upcasting
• Why “upcasting”?
• Composition vs. inheritance revisited
• The final keyword
• Final data
• Blank finals
• Final arguments
• Final methods
• final and private
• Final classes
• Final caution
• Initialization and class loading
• Initialization with inheritance
• Summary
• Exercises

• Upcasting revisited
• Forgetting the object type
• The twist
• Method-call binding
• Producing the right behavior
• Extensibility
• Pitfall: “overriding” private methods
• Abstract classes and methods
• Constructors and polymorphism
• Order of constructor calls
• Inheritance and cleanup
• Behavior of polymorphic methods inside constructors
• Designing with inheritance
• Pure inheritance vs. extension
• Downcasting and run-time type identification
• Summary
• Exercises

• Interfaces
• “Multiple inheritance” in Java
• Name collisions when combining interfaces
• Extending an interface with inheritance
• Grouping constants
• Initializing fields in interfaces
• Nesting interfaces
• Inner classes
• Inner classes and upcasting
• Inner classes in methods and scopes
• Anonymous inner classes
• The link to the outer class
• Nested classes
• Referring to the outer class object
• Reaching outward from a multiply-nested class
• Inheriting from inner classes
• Can inner classes be overridden?
• Local inner classes
• Inner class identifiers
• Why inner classes?
• Closures & Callbacks
• Inner classes & control frameworks
• Summary
• Exercises

• Basic exceptions
• Exception arguments
• Catching an exception
• The try block
• Exception handlers
• Termination vs. resumption
• Creating your own exceptions
• The exception specification
• Catching any exception
• Rethrowing an exception
• Exception chaining
• Standard Java exceptions
• The special case of RuntimeException
• Performing cleanup with finally
• What’s finally for?
• Pitfall: the lost exception
• Exception restrictions
• Constructors
• Exception matching
• Alternative approaches
• History
• Perspectives
• Passing exceptions to the console
• Converting checked to unchecked exceptions
• Exception guidelines
• Summary
• Exercises

• The need for RTTI
• The Class object
• Class literals
• Checking before a cast
• Using class literals
• A dynamic instanceof
• instanceof vs. Class equivalence
• RTTI syntax
• Reflection: run time class information
• A class method extractor
• Summary
• Exercises

• Arrays
• Arrays are first-class objects
• Containers of primitives
• Returning an array
• The Arrays class
• Filling an array
• Copying an array
• Comparing arrays
• Array element comparisons
• Sorting an array
• Searching a sorted array
• Array summary
• Introduction to containers
• Printing containers
• Filling containers
• Container disadvantage: unknown type
• Sometimes it works anyway
• Making a type-conscious ArrayList
• Parameterized types
• Iterators
• Unintended recursion
• Container taxonomy
• Collection functionality
• List functionality
• Making a stack from a LinkedList
• Making a queue from a LinkedList
• Set functionality
• SortedSet
• Map functionality
• SortedMap
• LinkedHashMap
• Hashing and hash codes
• Understanding hashCode( )
• HashMap performance factors
• Overriding hashCode( )
• Holding references
• The WeakHashMap
• Iterators revisited
• Choosing an implementation
• Choosing between Lists
• Choosing between Sets
• Choosing between Maps
• Sorting and searching Lists
• Utilities
• Making a Collection or Map unmodifiable
• Synchronizing a Collection or Map
• Fail fast
• Unsupported operations
• Java 1.0/1.1 containers
• Vector & Enumeration
• Hashtable
• Stack
• BitSet
• Summary
• Exercises

• The File class
• A directory lister
• Anonymous inner classes
• Checking for and creating directories
• Input and output
• Types of InputStream
• Types of OutputStream
• Adding attributes and useful interfaces
• Reading from an InputStream with FilterInputStream
• Writing to an OutputStream with FilterOutputStream
• Readers & Writers
• Sources and sinks of data
• Modifying stream behavior
• Unchanged Classes
• Off by itself: RandomAccessFile
• Typical uses of I/O streams
• Input streams
• 1. Buffered input file
• 2. Input from memory
• 3. Formatted memory input
• 4. File output
• Output streams
• 5. Storing and recovering data
• 6. Reading and writing random access files
• Piped streams
• File reading & writing utilities
• Standard I/O
• Reading from standard input
• Changing System.out to a PrintWriter
• Redirecting standard I/O
• New I/O
• Converting data
• Fetching primitives
• View buffers
• Endians
• Data manipulation with buffers
• Buffer details
• Memory-mapped files
• Performance
• File locking
• Locking portions of a mapped file
• Compression
• Simple compression with GZIP
• Multifile storage with Zip
• Java ARchives (JARs)
• Object serialization
• Finding the class
• Controlling serialization
• The transient keyword
• An alternative to Externalizable
• Versioning
• Using persistence
• Preferences
• Regular expressions
• Creating regular expressions
• Quantifiers
• CharSequence
• Pattern and Matcher
• find( )
• Groups
• start( ) and end( )
• Pattern flags
• split( )
• Replace operations
• reset( )
• Regular expressions and Java I/O
• Is StringTokenizer needed?
• Summary
• Exercises

• Motivation
• Basic threads
• Yielding
• Sleeping
• Priority
• Daemon threads
• Joining a thread
• Coding variations
• Creating responsive user interfaces
• Sharing limited resources
• Improperly accessing resources
• A resource testing framework
• Colliding over resources
• Resolving shared resource contention
• Synchronizing the EvenGenerator
• Atomic operations
• Fixing Semaphore
• Critical sections
• Thread states
• Becoming blocked
• Cooperation between threads
• Wait and notify
• Using Pipes for I/O between threads
• More sophisticated cooperation
• Deadlock
• The proper way to stop
• Interrupting a blocked thread
• Thread groups
• Summary
• Exercises

• The basic applet
• Applet restrictions
• Applet advantages
• Application frameworks
• Running applets inside a Web browser
• Using Appletviewer
• Testing applets
• Running applets from the command line
• A display framework
• Making a button
• Capturing an event
• Text areas
• Controlling layout
• BorderLayout
• FlowLayout
• GridLayout
• GridBagLayout
• Absolute positioning
• BoxLayout
• The best approach?
• The Swing event model
• Event and listener types
• Using listener adapters for simplicity
• Tracking multiple events
• A catalog of Swing components
• Buttons
• Button groups
• Icons
• Tool tips
• Text fields
• Borders
• JScrollPanes
• A mini-editor
• Check boxes
• Radio buttons
• Combo boxes (drop-down lists)
• List boxes
• Tabbed panes
• Message boxes
• Menus
• Pop-up menus
• Drawing
• Dialog Boxes
• File dialogs
• HTML on Swing components
• Sliders and progress bars
• Trees
• Tables
• Selecting Look & Feel
• The clipboard
• Packaging an applet into a JAR file
• Signing applets
• JNLP and Java Web Start
• Programming techniques
• Binding events dynamically
• Separating business logic from UI logic
• A canonical form
• Concurrency & Swing
• Runnable revisited
• Managing concurrency
• Visual programming and JavaBeans
• What is a JavaBean?
• Extracting BeanInfo with the Introspector
• A more sophisticated Bean
• JavaBeans and synchronization
• Packaging a Bean
• More complex Bean support
• More to Beans
• Summary
• Exercises

• Unit Testing
• A Simple Testing Framework
• JUnit
• Improving reliability with assertions
• Assertion syntax
• Using Assertions for Design by Contract
• Check instructions
• Preconditions
• Postconditions
• Invariants
• Relaxing DBC
• Example: DBC + white-box unit testing
• Building with Ant
• Automate everything
• Problems with make
• Ant: the defacto standard
• Ant extensions
• Version control with CVS
• Daily builds
• Logging
• Logging Levels
• LogRecords
• Handlers
• Multiple Handlers
• Writing your own Handlers
• Filters
• Formatters
• Example: Sending email to report log messages
• Controlling Logging Levels through Namespaces
• Logging Practices for Large Projects
• Configuration files
• Rotating log files
• Suggested practices
• Summary
• Debugging
• Debugging with JDB
• Graphical debuggers
• Profiling and optimizing
• Tracking memory consumption
• Tracking CPU usage
• Coverage testing
• JVM Profiling Interface
• Using HPROF
• Thread performance
• Optimization guidelines
• Doclets
• Summary
• Exercises

• Methodology
• Phase 0: Make a plan
• The mission statement
• Phase 1: What are we making?
• Phase 2: How will we build it?
• Five stages of object design
• Guidelines for object development
• Phase 3: Build the core
• Phase 4: Iterate the use cases
• Phase 5: Evolution
• Plans pay off
• Extreme Programming
• Write tests first
• Pair programming
• Strategies for transition
• Guidelines
• 1. Training
• 2. Low-risk project
• 3. Model from success
• 4. Use existing class libraries
• 5. Don’t rewrite existing code in Java
• Management obstacles
• Startup costs
• Performance issues
• Common design errors
• Summary

• Passing references around
• Aliasing
• Making local copies
• Pass by value
• Cloning objects
• Adding cloneability to a class
• Using a trick with protected
• Implementing the Cloneable interface
• Successful cloning
• The effect of Object.clone( )
• Cloning a composed object
• A deep copy with ArrayList
• Deep copy via serialization
• Adding cloneability farther down a hierarchy
• Why this strange design?
• Controlling cloneability
• The copy constructor
• Why does it work in C++ and not Java?
• Read-only classes
• Creating read-only classes
• The drawback to immutability
• Immutable Strings
• Implicit constants
• Overloading ‘+’ and the StringBuffer
• The String and StringBuffer classes
• Strings are special
• Summary
• Exercises

• Design
• Implementation

• Foundations for Java seminar-on-CD
• Thinking in Java seminar
• Hands-On Java seminar-on-CD 3rd edition
• Designing Objects & Systems seminar
• Thinking in Enterprise Java
• The J2EE seminar
• Thinking in Patterns (with Java)
• Thinking in Patterns seminar
• Design consulting and reviews

• Software
• Books
• Analysis & design
• Python
• My own list of books