When Only An Example Will Do

Ever waded through seemingly useless JDK JavaDoc screaming “I know getBlah() returns a Blah but what do I actually do with one once I have it?! How do I use the swags of java.io classes? And what in the world would I ever want a StreamTokenizer for?

So maybe you’re a smarty-wishbone-legs and know everything there is to know about using the JDK APIs but, there’s always something new to learn.

Sometimes forums and newsgroups can be a great help but more often than not I don’t feel like wading through 18 pages of discussion to find the answer. Sometimes I just want a succinct example.

Enter the Java Almanac. I’ve found it to be a good source of JDK examples. It generally seems to be pretty up-to-date with new examples added all the time and is a great starting point for developers who are new to Java and struggling to come to grips with the vast number of APIs.