Targeted at intermediate-to-advanced developers, this is the definitive tutorial introduction and reference to the Java SE7 language and its essential libraries. Co-authored by "father of Java" James Gosling and two respected leaders of the global Java community, this book brings together exclusive insights and best practices for doing more with Java, and writing more robust, efficient, and maintainable software. Developers worldwide have used previous editions to quickly gain a deep understanding of the Java programming language, its design goals, and its most effective use in real-world development. Now, every chapter has been updated to reflect best practices for Java SE7 coding, and several entirely new sections have been added. The Java Programming Language, Fifth Edition systematically covers most classes in Java's main packages, java.lang.*, java.util, and java.io, presenting in-depth explanations of why these classes work as they do, along with exceptionally instructive examples. The authors help experienced programmers gain unprecedented mastery over features and techniques ranging from "anonymous inner classes" and reflection to I/O, threading, and collections. The authors present exceptionally clear and practical explanations drawn from their immense experience pioneering the Java platform, and illustrate many of these examples using simple mathematical problems.

Ken Arnold 曾任 Sun 公司研究中心的高级工程师，是面向对象设计与实现方面首屈一指的专家。他曾经是 Jini 技术的架构师之一、 Sun 公司 JavaSpaces 技术的首席工程师。

James Gosling 是 Sun 公司院士和该公司开发平台组（ Developer Platform Group ）的 CTO 。他设计了 Java 程序设计语言，实现了最初的 Java 编译器和虚拟机，最近他正致力于 Java 实时规范（ Real-Time Specification for Java ）的相关工作。他是计算机界最受尊敬的程序员之一，曾荣获 Software Development 杂志评选的“程序设计杰出大奖”（1996 年）。

David Holmes 是澳大利亚布里斯班的 DLTech 公司的董事。他专攻同步与并发问题，是开发了最新的 Java 并发工具的 JSR-166 专家组的成员。他还参与了 Java 实时规范的修订工作，在过去的几年中他一直致力于该规范的实现工作。