The Java Tutorial FAQ

This page attempts to answer the questions that readers most frequently send to the tutorial e-mail address. We hope this information helps you get your answers. So, in the Q & A style of great columnists everywhere, Khwarazm and Me answer your questions...

You can read the tutorial on-line. Start at the trail map: The Java Tutorial. If you prefer to view it on your own system, you can download it free of charge. See Downloading the Tutorial for information. Unfortunately, we cannot send the tutorial to individuals via e-mail.

If you prefer to read paper, you can buy the book. It's over 800 pages long, lists at about $40 (U.S.), and includes a CD-ROM. The book is available at many good bookstores, or you can order it through amazon.com. Just ask for The Java Tutorial by Mary Campione and Kathy Walrath, published by Addison-Wesley, ISBN #0-201-63454-6.

Our policy on distribution is that anyone can have a copy of the online tutorial as long as it's visible only within their own institution (university, business, or whatever) and no one is profiting from the tutorial's distribution.

We've taken this strict position because mirror sites invariably fall behind, and we end up getting e-mail about problems that have been corrected in newer versions of the tutorial. Or perhaps worse, we don't get e-mail and the reputation of the tutorial suffers. We allow local copies because we realize that browsing java.sun.com isn't always practical.

You might have seen some copies of the tutorial around the web, but we're about to start cracking down on them. The potential support burden is just too high.

Go to http://java.sun.com/feedback/sitecomments.html and submit a trouble report. Describe exactly what the problem is. They can't help you if you don't give them enough information. Make sure you tell them the hardware platform, operating system, and browser you're using.

Go to http://java.sun.com/feedback/sitecomments.html and submit a trouble report. Make sure you indicate what hardware platform, operating system, and tools you're using to unarchive the tutorial files.

No. If you want a hard copy of the tutorial, you can buy or borrow the book. To find out why, read the next question and answer.

We used to offer a PostScript version of the tutorial, but it caused many more problems than it solved. There were problems with fonts, page size in Europe, older versions of PostScript, and so on. PDF format might solve some or all of those problems, but we also got a lot of complaints about the actual document: "it's just a PostScript dump of the HTML," "the links don't make sense on paper," and so on. PDF wouldn't solve those problems. As a result, we no longer provide PostScript, and we won't be providing it or PDF in the future.

Keep an eye on the on-line tutorial! We are busily working on it to make it reflect JDK 1.1.

First, we're updating the existing material in the tutorial. We're marking the information that changed between 1.0.2 and 1.1, and we're creating a new trail that documents how to convert programs from 1.0.2 to 1.1. In this way, the tutorial will provide a bridge between the old technology and the new.

Second, we are writing new material for features that are brand new to the JDK 1.1. We already have material on Writing Global Programs, Beans, and the new API for native methods.

Unfortunately we are not staffed to provide answers to these types of questions at this address. Here's the reply that we send back. This message lists a bunch of Java developer resources to help you get an answer to your question.

By the way, we tested all of the examples in the book on Suns, Macs, and PCs. The examples work for us. If you are having problems with the examples, then you are probably having configuration problems.

You can't subscribe to tutorial@javasoft.com. Try one of the developer resources listed in our auto-reply.

Khwarazm and me are FrameMaker's suggested respellings of Kathy and Mary's login names. For a long time, we had no idea what Khwarazm meant. Thanks to a couple of readers from eastern Europe, we now know that Khwarazm is a city in Central Asia. It used to be in the Soviet Union, and now it's in the Kara-Kalpakska region of Uzbekistan.

Thanks, Trucza Csaba and Dmitrii N. Rassokhin! (Now we wonder: Do we have any readers who've been in Kara-Kalpakska, much less Khwarazm?)