IT is with some pleasure that I write this foreword to the new edition of the Java Tutorial.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Java platform has been the quality of its documentation. This has included the tutorials, as well as the detailed documentation of the APIs by means of JavaDoc, and the many books published in the Java series. One could argue that the quality of the documentation resources has been every bit as important to the widespread adoption of the Java platform as the quality of the language and libraries themselves. Indeed, they are all of a piece, and each deserves recognition and credit for the qualities it manifests.

Millions of developers spend their professional lives enveloped in the ecosystem engendered by the Java platform. There are myriad standards, APIs and tools. There is so much to learn! What’s more, the amount of information you need to know keeps on growing. While this growth is something we software professionals should all be thankful for, it is an ongoing challenge for developers. I hope this tutorial will make it easier to meet this challenge and obtain competence and even mastery of the Java platform.

Whether you become a truly “competent programmer,” as Edsger Dijkstra put it many years ago, is up to you; but if you don’t, it cannot be blamed on the lack of a good Java tutorial. A number of dedicated professionals have done their best to see to that.

I hope this new edition meets and even exceeds the high standards set by its predecessors. Ultimately, it is you, the reader, who must be the judge. I expect you will not be disappointed.