Java Developer Interview Preparation Guide

Objects that subclass the Observable class maintain a list of observers. When an Observable object is updated it invokes the update() method of each of its observers to notify the observers that it has changed state. The Observer interface is implemented by objects that observe Observable objects.

With respect to multithreading, synchronization is the capability to control the access of multiple threads to shared resources. Without synchronization, it is possible for one thread to modify a shared object while another thread is in the process of using or updating that object's value. This often causes dirty data and leads to significant errors.

Synchronized methods are methods that are used to control access to an object. A thread only executes a synchronized method after it has acquired the lock for the method's object or class. Synchronized statements are similar to synchronized methods. A synchronized statement can only be executed after a thread has acquired the lock for the object or class referenced in the synchronized statement.

A thread can enter the waiting state by invoking its sleep() method, by blocking on I/O, by unsuccessfully attempting to acquire an object's lock, or by invoking an object's wait() method. It can also enter the waiting state by invoking its (deprecated) suspend() method.

The preferred size of a component is the minimum component size that will allow the component to display normally.

The stop(), suspend() and resume() methods have been deprecated in JDK 1.2.

A transient variable is a variable that may not be serialized.

The Panel and Applet classes use the FlowLayout as their default layout.

Yes, a lock can be acquired on a class. This lock is acquired on the class's Class object.

The List interface provides support for ordered collections of objects.