Oracle’s Official Java Site

The Java software division of Oracle maintains three websites of interest to programmers and users of its language.

The Oracle Technology Network for Java Developers, which is published at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java, is the first place to visit when looking for Java-related information. New versions of the Java Development Kit and other programming resources are available for download, along with documentation for the entire Java class library. There’s also a bug database, a user group directory, and support forums.

Java.net at www.java.net is a large community of Java programmers. You can start your own weblog focused on the language, create a new open-source project and host it for free on the site, and collaborate with other programmers.

Java.com at www.java.com promotes the benefits of the language to consumers and nonprogrammers. You can download the Java runtime environment from the site, which enables users to run programs created with Java on their computers. There’s also a gallery showing examples of where Java is being used today.

Java Class Documentation

Perhaps the most useful part of Oracle’s Java site is the documentation for every class, variable, and method in the Java class library. Thousands of pages are available online at no cost to you to show you how to use the classes in your programs.

To visit the class documentation for Java 7, go to http://download.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api.