JavaTM s growth over the last five years has been nothing short of phenomenal. Given

Java s rapid rise to prominence and the general interest in networking, it s a little

surprising that network programming in Java is still so mysterious to so many. This

doesn t have to be. In fact, writing network programs in Java is quite simple, as this

book will show. Readers with previous experience in network programming in a Unix,

Windows, or Macintosh environment should be pleasantly surprised at how much

easier it is to write equivalent programs in Java. That s because the Java core API

includes well-designed interfaces to most network features. Indeed, there is very little

application layer network software you can write in C or C++ that you can t write

more easily in Java. Java Network Programming endeavors to show you how to take

advantage of Java s network class library to quickly and easily write programs that

accomplish many common networking tasks.