Java Term of the Week: AWT

This week's term you will hear a lot about when creating user interfaces in Java. A graphical user interface is made up of different graphical components, such as buttons, textboxes, images, etc. Rather than having to build these components from scratch, Java provides a set of core APIs to help programmers.

AWT stands for "Abstract Window Toolkit". The AWT is the first verison of graphical components released as a core API. Programmers now use the next generation of components found in the Swing API. However, Swing is built upon the core classes contained within the AWT.