The Sun Certified Developer for the Java 2 Platform assignment offers a unique opportunity for Java developers to put their Java skills to practical use without requiring any specific dev- opment or runtime environment. The assignment also provides a great learning environment as many different APIs can be used, and many alternative solutions can be provided. This book introduces many of the concepts you will need to know in order to pass the SCJD assignment. Many developers are a little daunted by the scope of the assignment, as it covers everything from a back-end database, a server application, a front-end application, API documentation, and user documention. This book covers each section in detail, helping you gradually build up your knowledge of each topic while working toward a sample project. This book will also introduce you to the new features of JDK 5, providing contextual usage of the new APIs and features within our sample project. The Sun assignment deliberately does not specify an operating system platform or dev- opment environment to be used—all that is needed is a computer capable of running a current version of the JDK. Throughout this book we have used JDK 5 on Windows 2000. Since this book introduces JDK 5 features, and uses them throughout our sample project, you will need JDK 5 to run our sample applications; however, the sample application is not dependent on Windows 2000.