You'll find that the second edition carries over many strong points from the original, including a quick-start introduction to Java for C or C++ programmers and the handy quick-reference format. It also details the many new features of Java 1.1, including extensions to the object model and the new release of the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT), Inner Classes, Java Beans, and Java ARchive (JAR) files. The book does not attempt to cover "enterprise" application programming interfaces (API), such as Java's new commerce-related security features, Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) and Remote Method Invocation (RMI). The author plans to document these features in a separate volume.
The second half of Java in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition, is a quick reference to all the packages that comprise the Java API. In the course of over 300 pages, the author introduces each package with a summary and a graphical hierarchy diagram. He then documents each package's component classes and interfaces in detail. For cases where you know the name of a class, but not its package, an index of classes, methods, and fields provide a useful cross-reference to the packages that contain them. This edition removes some of the example code of the previous edition, but provides many samples that cover new language features.