This book is the result of an unusual, but fruitful collaboration between David Flanagan and Brett McLaughlin. David was at work on the fifth edition of Java in a Nutshell, but was eager to get coverage of the major language changes in Tiger out sooner than the production schedule for that book allowed. Brett, meanwhile, was the driving editorial force behind this innovative new series of Developer's Notebooks, and was eager to include a title on Tiger in the series.
The process went like this:
David researched the new features of Tiger and wrote about them for Java in a Nutshell. He sent drafts of his new material to Brett.
Brett feverishly ripped those chapters apart, rewrote almost everything, added new examples, and reassembled everything into the Developer's Notebook format.
The result is a book almost entirely written by Brett, based on research done by David. The tone of the writing and the engaging style of the book is Brett's, and readers of this book and Java in a Nutshell will be hard-pressed to find any duplication of prose. In a few cases, Brett has used code samples that also appear in Java in a Nutshell, and in each case that fact is mentioned in the margin.