Common gotchas in Java
Overview Java is a minimalist language with deliberately less features than other languages, never the less it has edge cases which strange effects, and even some common cases with surprising effects to trip up the unwary. If you are used to reading another language you can easily read Java the wrong way leaving to confusion. Variables are only references or primitives That's right, variables are not Objects. This means when you see the following, s is not an object , it is not a String, it is a reference to a String String s = "Hello"; This answers many areas of confusion such as; Q: If String is immutable how can I change it. e g. s += "!"; A: You can't in normal Java, you can only change a reference to a String. == compares references, not their contents. To add to the confusion, using == some times works. If you have two immutable values which are the same, the JVM can try to make the references the same too. e.g. ...