What is Your Favourite Area of the Java API?

Question

I'm curious to know what other Java programmers feel is their favorite part of the language, why they feel that way, and why other programmers should want an intimate knowledge of it as well. I'm looking for reasons like simplicity, performance, etc. Thanks.

Answer 1

My favourite Java API is the Collections Framework. I find myself using it all the time instead of rolling my own implementations, and it is highly enjoyable and simple to use. It consists of several useful and interchangeable implementations of high-performance data structures and algorithms, as well as several convenience methods for wrapping additional functionality around them.

A tutorial by Josh Bloch can be found here: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/collections/index.html

Answer 2

My favorite part of the API is definitely java.lang. It has this class called String, which allows you to easily manipulate arrays of characters. Any programmer who is serious about writing good Java code should check it out.