. . . Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the Universe . . .

Java—a development by James Gosling and a team at Sun Microsystems—hit the streets in the autumn of 1995 and has become a major success story in terms of a programming language and development environment that boosts programmer productivity.

Java was launched as a means of distributing “executable content” to web browsers. Java has proved itself as a software development language in which software engineers can be incredibly productive, and Java has established a firm footing in enterprise software. Even Microsoft have admitted that their programmers are more productive in Java.

Visit the Java site of Sun Microsystems in to check on the latest offerings. This is the first place to go for Java resources. You can download Software Developer Kits (SDKs), locate tutorials, and find many other resources.

Gamelan was one of the first major web sites to act as a clearing house for Java resources, tools, applications, and class libraries.

JARS is a Java resources review site that lists Java applications, class libraries, and other resources. You can find pretty much anything you want in terms of Java programming resources and community forums.

Layout Manager Launch is a web site dedicated to collecting references to Layout Managers—the interfaces that position and size AWT or Swing components within their containers.

Jad is a Java Decompiler—that is, a program that reads one or more Java class files and converts them into Java source code files that can be compiled again. Uses of Jad include recovering lost source codes; exploring the sources of Java runtime libraries; as a Java disassembler; as a Java source code cleaner and beautifier. I have personally tried at least five Java decompilers, and Jad is by far the best I have seen.