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From JavaSpec.org
This is the English Flagship of 
Absolute 
Clarity
No glitz here. Just nuts and bolts, a focus on detail,
and a community of like-minded programmers. —Doug
Member of the ITechWrite.org Family of Educational Networks
Taking the Bruce Eckel model of computer book publishing to an entirely new level...
OUR STATED MISSION IS TO EDUCATE AND LEARN. We do not compete with JUGs, blogs, and the websites of the best and brightest. The JavaSpec.org Network shall forever remain focused on Java fundamentals within the narrow scope of The Java Language Specification. Our goal is to have the best organized and most complete Java fundamentals book on the market, within that narrow scope. As a member of one of The JavaSpec.org Network translation teams, you are more than a translator. You become a co-author and are part of a large, international team of Java programmers who are going to make a significant contribution to the Java community. Each translation team is self-supportive through the use of unobtrusive, vertical-only online advertising and printed book sales.
What We Do: Highly Synchronized, International Thinking in Java Fundamentals
Our passive job is to educate but our active job is to learn more about Java fundamentals from our users. The Spanish translation team alone has the potential of bringing the thought of thousands of Java programmers in South America to bear on the subject of Java fundamentals. We’re going to tap into such “knowledge reservoirs“ all over the world. The prime directive for translation teams is to pass along this knowledge so that it can be disseminated to the other team members. Actually, so long as we are talking Star Trek, it’s more like a Borg collective thing, with Doug playing the role of the evil Borg Queen until such time as a Board of Directors can be appointed. If we succeed, other such networks will follow and significantly fewer trees will be destroyed in the name of the old publishing models. But beware, this is still only the first season. The Klingons are apparently still our enemies. I almost lost my job for that.
Bilingual? Get your *free* tickets (including possibly plane fare for you and your entire family, if you are from one of the Latino countries in South America) to the Annual Translators Ball.
Contents |
News
Very Old Entry (date unknown): I am still working on the conversion. You can always track my progress in the yellow background notes below. Chapters 2-4 are partially converted. Chapters 5-6 do not yet exist. I am in the middle of a marketing campaign announcing the launch of this new website and beginning to work with translation teams, both of which are taking all of my time. The conversion is temporarily on hold because of this. Nevertheless, my entire second volume (chapters 7-12) has already been converted. There is plenty enough for you to read and decide if you would like to join us as we chart some new waters—highly synchronized, international thinking in Java. Hi Bruce! See what you started (in more ways than one).
I share my vision of The JavaSpec.org Network in the Translator Agreement. I dare say it may be some interesting reading, even if you are not bilingual.
Please note that there is still much, much cleanup to do yet even in the chapters already converted, such as missing attributions. I am doing something novel this time. This is the form of my new JLS attributions: JLS3± §9.9 Section Name. I cite the latest version in which the reference has been checked. All references marked ± must be rechecked with each new edition of the JLS. References that begin JLS1 or JLS2 indicate a historical reference that should never be updated. Each reference is a live link to the actual section of the JLS on the Sun’s website. They're really fun. I like them so much that I am going to extremes in these new editions of my work to make all references links to the original source material.
Not-So-Smart™ and Other Registered Trademarks
Here’s my latest idea:
A Java Fundamentals Book for Programmers Like [sic] Doug, Who are Not-So-Smart™
Other than having a great deal of respect for their corporate officers and legal staff:
NEITHER THIS WEBSITE NOR IT’S OWNER DOUG DUNN HAVE ANY AFFILIATION WITH SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC WHATSOEVER. THE WORK DISPLAYED HERE IS THAT OF AUTHOR DOUG DUNN. MY WORK HAS ALWAYS HAD (NEARLY) THE SAME SCOPE AS THE JAVA LANGUAGE SPECIFICATION, BUT SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED WITH THE OFFICIAL SPECIFICATION PUBLISHED BY SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC., WHO SO FAR AT LEAST CONTINUE TO GRACIOUSLY ALLOW ME TO EXIST WITH "JavaSpec" IN MY PERSONAL DOMAIN NAME, EVEN THOUGH THAT IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF THEIRS.
I SEE NO POSSIBILITY FOR CONFUSION, AND WILL CONTINUE TO EXERCISE "DUE DILIGENCE" IN ALWAYS MAKING SURE THERE IS NO CONFUSION BETWEEN MY WRITINGS AND THE OFFICIAL SPECIFICATION, WHICH INCLUDES THIS NOTE AS IS HERE ALWAYS FRONT AND CENTER.
Java™, JavaSpec™ and Duke™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries.
Welcome Letter
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Welcome to JavaSpec.org, a new wiki for students of the Java programming language. My name is Doug, and I am the author. I’ve been working on this material an absurdly long period of time. In truth, you are one click away from a learning experience that has more man hours behind it than any other Java book on the market, with the possible exception of The Java Tutorial. To learn more about the long history of my work on Java fundamentals, read About JavaSpec.org. To start learning Java fundamentals my way, click on one of the points of entry to your left. There’s no need to register. Anonymous users of this wiki have full access to the content. I am a former construction worker, and understand how hard it is to learn something new. I left a highly successful career on mainframes in order to dedicate myself to a radically new book concept, rewriting The Java Language Specification so that it can be read and understood by the average programmer. Years of work in that direction are a click away from you now. Learn from someone who cares enough to take the time and explain things carefully, fully, and exactingly. The strength of my work is my utter conviction that everyone is smart enough to understand this stuff. It is not the exclusive domain of the best and brightest. You can do it! Just follow the road map I left behind. And if you really cannot understand something I am saying, write to me at doug@javaspec.org, tell me what you don’t understand, and I’ll figure out a way of saying it that you can understand. That’s a promise. I am 100% totally approachable. Enjoy your first read! —Doug P.S. There will be two thousand pages of text added over the coming months, all within the narrow scope of The Java Language Specification (the very heart of the language). |
Translations
If you are interested in translating this work into your native tongue, please email me at doug@javaspec.org.
Read the Translator Agreement
Conversion Status
CONVERSION STATUS: Thanks to the generosity of Jeremy H. Griffith at Omni Systems, I am configuring Mif2Go to convert both books from FrameMaker to a simplified HTML that works in MediaWiki. This is a great FrameMaker conversion tool, the only one as far as I am concerned. What little else was available doesn’t come close to my needs. In fairness to Jeremey, this could have been a single click conversion using his tool, but I elected to do some parts of it by hand for reasons that had little or nothing to do with the available FrameMaker conversion tools.
The conversion is in full swing now. All of the text for Volume 2 has already been converted. That represents over 1,000 pages of text in a printed book. I’ve discontinued the project status blog in favor of this things-to-do list, which makes it easier to track my progress.
I started the conversion in Chapter 7 because that is the first chapter of the second volume and I am converting the second volume first. Clear? If not, here is the order in which I am converting chapters: 7-8-9-10-11-12-1-2-3-4-5-6. Why Volume 2 first? It’s a long story.
The entire table of contents from both books has been added in advance of the actual content. Links to sections in the unconverted chapters are broken. Here's how to tell the difference. Red links are broken. Clicking on a red link opens a blank page that you cannot edit.
There are a total of nearly 550 sections, over 2,000 pages of text, and hundreds of tables and original illustrations. Progress will be slow at times. It's a massive job, so please be patient. All of the text will be available before the end of this month. The only writing I am doing is cleaning up messes left behind when I rather abruptly quit working on the second edition of Java Rules.
Conversion Things-To-Do List
- Setup MediaWiki web site
- Convert text for chapters 7-12 (Volume 2)
- Convert figures for chapters 7-12
- Convert tables for chapters 7-12
- Text conversion cleanup and update cross-references for chapters 7-12
- Convert text for chapters 1-6 (Volume 1)
- convert chapter 1 text
- convert chapter 2 text
- convert chapter 3 text
- convert chapter 4 text
- convert chapter 5 text
- convert chapter 6 text
- Convert figures for chapters 1-6
- Convert tables for chapters 1-6
- Text conversion cleanup and update cross-references for chapters 1-6
- Check for and fix all broken links
- Convert table footnotes for both books
- Convert citations and other footnotes for both books
- Check for broken links again
- Update chapters 7-12 for the 1.6 release
- Update chapters 1-6 for the 1.5 release
- Update chapters 1-6 for the 1.6 release
- Rewrite all sections for readability
The Horse Race
I made a few changes here. The old “Web Pages“ count was a MediaWiki system variable that included a lot of pages you do not actually read. The new count is taken directly from the sitemap.xml file used by both Google and Yahoo! to index the website. When the conversion is done, this number should be in excess of 600 web pages. I use GSiteCrawler to automatically update the sitemap.xml file every day, so that it is always current. Every month Unique Visitors and Different Countries is reset so as to flush out the deadwood (people not actually reading the book). “The Top 20” list of countries is updated every Monday. Check back and see how your horse (country) is doing.
Last Updated: Tuesday, 22 April 2008 10:20 CST This section is no longer being updated.
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 The Top 20 (most pages read) |
In the grand tradition of the original JLS, I quote my choice of great thinkers. This passage from Walden has always reminded me of my fellow computer programmers…
The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day. He cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men. His labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance which his growth requires who has so often to use his knowledge...The finest qualities of our natures, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. The mass of men [read “professional computer programmers”] lead lives of quiet desperation...It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking and doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. [read “Question everything!”] What everybody echoes [to the display screen] or in silence passes by as true today, may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.
– Henry David Thoreau
WALDEN or, Life in the Woods
Footnotes
Logo Image: My use of the “Warrior” portrait as logo and favicon is pending copyright approval from an extraordinary artist by the name of Marie Rosé of GrayFalcon Graphics. She is also a physics teacher. I encourage you to visit her gallery and make a purchase. Marie and I are now in contact and working on a deal that would allow me to continue to use this image.
