The market in general-purpose Java texts is an exceptionally well populated one, as can be seen from just a cursory examination of the programming language section of any major bookshop. Surprisingly, the market in Java network programming texts is a much less exploited one, featuring very few texts. It is true that the better general-purpose Java texts provide some guidance on aspects of network programming, but this almost invariably takes the form of rather superficial coverage, often relegated to the end of the particular text and offering little more than an outline of the relevant concepts. Even those few texts that are devoted specifically to network programming in Java (and one or two are very good indeed) are rather thick tomes that are probably of greatest use as reference texts. The truth of this assertion appears to be reinforced by the absence of practical exercises from such texts...