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Questions to Dr. Horstmann

 
Greenhorn
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Welcome Mr. Horstmann,

What relevant sections covered in your book find more challenging? and is there an insight of Java 9?

Thanks,
Abraham
 
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Since not even Oracle is 100% sure yet what will and won't be in Java 9*, I doubt you will find many books that cover Java 9 until just around its release.


* I've been to Devoxx last November, and Mark Reinhold said that even project Jigsaw is not a definite inclusion.
 
author
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Hi, the most challenging material for me is concurrent programming. I keep rewriting that chapter every edition. The Java capabilities change. The use cases change. (20 years ago, people cared about a web server that idly waited for a few connections. Now you want to keep many cores busy.) And I get better at explaining what to do, and what to stay away from.

But the biggest pain in the neck was actually to get an applet running for the obligatory screen shot. Have you tried the Java Plug-in recently? It's a mess.

Java 9 will be another big change. The most important innovation will be modularity. I can't wait to say goodbye to JAR files, even if it will be a long goodbye.

Cheers,

Cay
 
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I suppose applets still qualify as "Core Java", but isn't it about time to get rid of them? It looks like their days are numbered except maybe for a very small niche. And maybe not even that.
 
Cay Horstmann
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Indeed, applets are no longer really viable, and I say so in the book. But I wanted to give readers the chance to experience a "blast from the past" since applets were what made Java exciting in 1996. So I had to describe how to get them to run with a modern browser. It's not pretty. You have to use a browser that still supports NPAPI such as Firefox and Safari (at least for now), and you have to tell the Java control panel to trust file:///.

In the next edition, I probably won't even be able to do that, when no browser will support the Java Plug-In any more.

Cheers,

Cay
 
With a little knowledge, a cast iron skillet is non-stick and lasts a lifetime.
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