Beginning Java 2 has a detailed introduction to the Java Foundation Classes (JFC), a vast set of graphics functionality including Java2D and Swing, which makes developing windowed applications much easier. It also covers the new Collections API, a bunch of container classes for representing and handling other Java objects, and has up-to-date coverage of threads, serialization and JDBC 2.0. The revised edition of the best-selling introductory Java book Beginning Java has been thoroughly updated for the Java 2 platform and the JDK 1.2 release. The book still teaches Java from scratch, assuming only basic programming know-how and in a tutorial format, but it now takes a slightly different route through the Java class libraries.