Are there compatibility issues with using the Java 2 Platform?
In the large majority of cases, there are no compatibility issues to be concerned about when moving from JDK 1.1 to the Java 2 Platform. The documentation for a given Java 2 Platform release describes all known incompatibilities, most of which are in the category of “corner cases.” For example, known compatibility issues in version 1.3 of the Java 2 Platform are described at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/compatibility.html. Some old class files generated by early bytecode compilers do not strictly conform to the proper class-file format, and the Java 2 Runtime Environment may not load such classes. For more information, see Updating Old Class Files. In addition to compatibility issues between different releases of the Java platform, there is the question of incompatibilities between Sun’s Java runtime environment and other Java runtime environments, for example the one included with some Internet Explorer browsers. Sun has made a great effort to minimize such incompatibilities.
