Javaâ„¢'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 littlesurprising 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 thisbook will show. Readers with previous experience in network programming in a Unix, Windows, or Macintosh environment should be pleasantly surprised at how mucheasier 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 littleapplication 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.