How advanced is java 1.6 with respect to java 1.1 ?

[broli]

I've learned java 1.1 using a relatively old video tutorial and
realized it only later.

Is java 1.1 similar to java 1.6 or is it radically different ?

And if its similar, what additional features do I need to learn ?

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I've learned java 1.1 using a relatively old video tutorial and
realized it only later.

Is java 1.1 similar to java 1.6 or is it radically different ?

And if its similar, what additional features do I need to learn ?

Everything you have learned is still valid (except for a few very
obscure points).

But there has added some things to the Java language.

And the Java library is much much bigger.

So you will need to learn some more before you are
uptodate on Java 1.6.

Arne

 

[Mike Schilling]

Everything you have learned is still valid (except for a few very
obscure points).

But there has added some things to the Java language.

The biggest ones being inner classes and generics.

 

[Lew]

I've learned java [sic] 1.1 using a relatively old video tutorial and
realized it only later.

Is java [sic] 1.1 similar to java [sic] 1.6 or is it radically different ?

And if its similar, what additional features do I need to learn ?

Everything you have learned is still valid (except for a few very
obscure points).

But there has added some things to the Java language.

And the Java library is much much bigger.

So you will need to learn some more before you are
uptodate on Java 1.6.

A lot more.

The Collections framework, 'assert', generics, the new memory model,
additional run-time options (e.g., for the garbage collector), the 'for-each'
loop construct, and a number of stylistic and idiomatic changes, plus
gazillions of new APIs (NIO and java.util.concurrent to name two). And so
much more.

For God's sake, don't use java.util.Vector or java.util.Hashtable any more.

Synchronization is now much, much less expensive. Allocation and garbage
collection are now much, much faster. Swing has come into existence, and been
infinitely improved. Java Enterprise Edition has appeared, with many good
implementations, some of them open source.

There is a ton of documentation on these issues and more. java.sun.com and
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java are good sources for tutorials and
articles. Read and study Joshua Bloch's /Effective Java/ and Brian Goetz's
/Java Concurrency in Practice/. For starters.

 

[Daniel Pitts]

I've learned java 1.1 using a relatively old video tutorial and
realized it only later.

Is java 1.1 similar to java 1.6 or is it radically different ?

And if its similar, what additional features do I need to learn ?

Java 1.1 programs will work in Java 1.6, but you will miss a *lot* of
powerful features/libraries/speed/etc... that has been added over the years.

Note, Java 1.1 was released over a decade ago, and Java has been almost
constantly improving in the mean time.
<http://java.sun.com/j2se/codenames.html>

 

[broli]

Alright, then in that case I will switch to a more recent book.

It seems the only things similar is the basic syntax, control loops
etc.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Alright, then in that case I will switch to a more recent book.

For the API JavaDocs, bookmark this..
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/overview-summary.html>

Or better still, download them..
<http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp#docs>

 

[Mark Thornton]

The biggest ones being inner classes and generics.

Inner classes were already in 1.1

Mark Thornton.

 

[Tom Anderson]

The biggest ones being inner classes and generics.

I'd say the biggest one is collections. Those came in in 1.2, and made a
huge difference to everyday programming.

There were some massive changes on the GUI side around then, too - i don't
think the basics of AWT changed much from 1.1 to 1.2 (they did from 1.0 to
1.1), but isn't that when Swing came in?

tom

 

[prabesh shrestha]

For God's sake, don't use java.util.Vector or java.util.Hashtable any more.

I use java.util.Vector a lot.What's the alternative you suggest?

Prabesh Shrestha

 

[John B. Matthews]

I use java.util.Vector a lot.What's the alternative you suggest?

When any ordered collection (sequence) that implements the List or Map
interface will do, select the one that does what you want with the least
extra baggage. For example, I'd prefer ArrayList to Vector when
synchronization is not required; I'd prefer LinkedList to Stack and
HashMap to HashTable for a similar reason. Conversely, I wouldn't use
ConcurrentSkipListMap when a plain old HashMap is sufficient.

<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/List.html>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Map.html>

 

[Mike Schilling]

Inner classes were already in 1.1

Your're right. Generics, then, along with autoboxing and the other 1.5
changes.

 

[Lew]

I'd say the biggest one is collections. Those came in in 1.2, and made a
huge difference to everyday programming.

There were some massive changes on the GUI side around then, too -
don't think the basics of AWT changed much from 1.1 to 1.2 (they did
from 1.0 to 1.1), but isn't that when Swing came in?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_version_history>

 

[Lew]

That class was replaced over *ten* years ago! Why are you still using it?

When any ordered collection (sequence) that implements the List or Map
interface will do, select the one that does what you want with the least
extra baggage. For example, I'd prefer ArrayList to Vector when
synchronization is not required; I'd prefer LinkedList to Stack and
HashMap to HashTable for a similar reason. Conversely, I wouldn't use
ConcurrentSkipListMap when a plain old HashMap is sufficient.

<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/List.html>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Map.html>

Quite in line with the advice to incur "the least extra baggage",
'Collections.synchronizedList(List)' is better than 'Vector 'and
'Collections.synchronizedMap(Map)' is better than 'Hashtable'. They don't
have extraneous methods and related classes that are outside the collections
framework.

<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Collections.html#synchronizedList(java.util.List)>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Collections.html#synchronizedMap(java.util.Map)>

'Vector' has methods like 'elementAt()' and helper classes like 'Enumeration'
that you don't need in original code, and 'Hashtable' also pulls in
'Enumeration'.

The Javadocs for 'Stack' tell us:

A more complete and consistent set of LIFO stack operations
is provided by the Deque interface and its implementations,
which should be used in preference to this class.

See also:
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/Collections.html#asLifoQueue(java.util.Deque)>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/LinkedBlockingDeque.html>

There really is no good reason to use those antiquated legacy classes any
more. Their replacement predates the time when most anybody making money
writing Java code started doing so.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I'd say the biggest one is collections. Those came in in 1.2, and made a
huge difference to everyday programming.

Collection framework came in 1.2, but Vector and Hashtable did exist
before.

There were some massive changes on the GUI side around then, too - i
don't think the basics of AWT changed much from 1.1 to 1.2 (they did
from 1.0 to 1.1), but isn't that when Swing came in?

Swing came in 1.2 (I believe it could be used in 1.1 as an extra
library).

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I use java.util.Vector a lot.What's the alternative you suggest?

java.util.ArrayList

Arne

 

[Joshua Cranmer]

I use java.util.Vector a lot.What's the alternative you suggest?

It depends. Do you want an O(N) random-access list but O(1) head/tail
insertion/deletion? Or an O(1) random-access list but O(N) head
insertion/deletion and O(1) amortized tail insertion/deletion?

If you read the documentation for java.util.Vector, you'll notice that
it contains a strong warning to use other collections; the only reason
it's not deprecated is because non-deprecated APIs have to use it.

 

[Mark Space]

Alright, then in that case I will switch to a more recent book.

It seems the only things similar is the basic syntax, control loops
etc.

Also, you might try the Sun's online tutorial, since that is kept up to
date.

<http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/>

 

[Tom Anderson]

Collection framework came in 1.2, but Vector and Hashtable did exist
before.

True. But collections added loads more stuff, including an Iterator
interface that wasn't as agonising to use as Enumeration.

tom

 

[Roedy Green]

Is java 1.1 similar to java 1.6 or is it radically different ?

And if its similar, what additional features do I need to learn ?

See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jdk.html
for a list of major features added with each version.
The big advances I would say are

Collections
Swing
Assertions
for:each
autoboxing
Generics
--
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
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