Introduction

“He gave man speech, and speech created thought, Which is the measure of the Universe”—Prometheus Unbound, Shelley

上帝赋予了人类说话的能力，而语言有创造了思想，思想是人类对宇宙的度量。

Human beings ... are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication and reflection. The fact of the matter is that the “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.

The Status of Linguistics as a Science, 1929, Edward Sapir

人类极其容易受那些已经成为社会表达工具的特定语言的支配。

Like any human language, Java provides a way to express concepts. If successful, this medium of expression will be significantly easier and more flexible than the alternatives as problems grow larger and more complex.

NOTE: “human language”也就是我们平常所说的natural language。关于“concept“，参见文章Abstraction。

正如在文章Language中，所总结的“不同语言有着各自的优势”，显然，Java有着它的优势。

You can’t look at Java as just a collection of features—some of the features make no sense in isolation. You can use the sum of the parts only if you are thinking about design, not simply coding. And to understand Java in this way, you must understand the problems with the language and with programming in general. This book discusses programming problems, why they are problems, and the approach Java has taken to solve them. Thus, the set of features that I explain in each chapter are based on the way I see a particular type of problem being solved with the language. In this way I hope to move you, a little at a time, to the point where the Java mindset becomes your native tongue.

Throughout, I’ll be taking the attitude that you want to build a model in your head that allows you to develop a deep understanding of the language; if you encounter a puzzle, you’ll feed it to your model and deduce the answer.