Web proxy server - Chapter 3: Using the Basic Building Blocks 47
Chapter 3: Using the Basic Building Blocks 47 No one knows all there is to know about the Java API. If you re a Java programmer who frequently writes programs that open new windows, you know how to use the API Frameclass. If you seldom write programs that open windows, the first few times you need to create a window, you can look up the Frameclass in the API documentation. My guess is that if you took a typical Java programmer and kept that programmer from looking up anything in the API documentation, the programmer would be able to use less than 2 percent of all the tools in the Java API. Sure, you may love the For Dummies style. But unfortunately, Java s official API documentation isn t written that way. The API documentation is both concise and precise. For some help deciphering the API documentation s language and style, see this book s Web site. In a way, nothing about the Java API is special. Whenever you write a Java program even the smallest, simplest Java program you create a class that s on par with any of the classes defined in the official Java API. The API is just a set of classes and other tools that were created by ordinary programmers who happen to participate in the official JCP the Java Community Process. Unlike the tools that you create yourself, the tools in the API are distributed with every version of Java. (I m assuming that you, the reader, are not a participant in the Java Community Process. But then, with a fine book like Java For Dummies, 4th Edition, one never knows.) If you re interested in the JCP s activities, visit www.jcp.org. The folks at the JCP don t keep the Java programs in the official Java API a secret. If you want, you can look at all these programs. When you install Java on your computer, the installation puts a file named src.zipon your hard drive. You can open src.zipwith your favorite unzipping program. There, before your eyes, is all the Java API code. The words in a Java program A hard-core Javateer will say that the Java programming language has two different kinds of words: keywords and identifiers. This is true. But the bare truth, without any other explanation, is sometimes misleading. So I recommend dressing up the truth a bit and thinking in terms of three kinds of words: keywords, identifiers that ordinary programmers like you and me create, and identifiers from the API. The differences among these three kinds of words are similar to the differences among words in the English language. In the sentence Sam is a person, the word person is like a Java keyword. No matter who uses the word person, the word always means roughly the same thing. (Sure, you can think of bizarre exceptions in English usage, but please don t.)
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