From C to Java: an introduction to Java for C programmers

(Continued from our introduction to Java for C programmers.)

The Java class libraries

The C language in its most basic form is quite a "bare" entity: comprising the language itself plus a few standard libraries such as stdio for the given platform. Other libraries such as graphics libraries must either be hand-written or picked from a range of possibilities to suit the target platform in question.

Java, on the other hand, is generally bound to a fairly rich standard platform of class libraries for handling areas such as the following:

• window-based user interfaces, in a framework called Swing;
• I/O and networking;
• handling data structures such as lists, maps etc in the Collections framework;
• threading;
• regular expressions;
• sound;
• graphics;
• encryption;
• many other things...

This rich set of libraries is linked to the Java deployment model.

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