The Java language has been growing from strength to strength since its inception in 1995. It has since proved to be both powerful and extraordinarily easy to learn and use. This is what makes it ideal for the beginner. With dramatic changes to the handling of files, and the introduction of native support for XML, Java has been updated to work faster and to be current with the incredible rise of XML as a medium for communicating data.

This edition of the Beginning Java books outlines everything the beginning programmer needs to know to program with the Java programming language and the 1.4 Java Developer Kit (JDK). With the release of JDK 1.4, programmers can look forward to the most stable edition yet, and even better performance than was available previously.

Over the course of the book, you will build an example application called Sketcher — a simple drawing tool — that teaches you how to build an interactive user interface with Java, how to save and open files, how to use color, and how to respond to user input.