List myList = new ArrayList<String>(); Can anyone explain this in plain English?

"A Java interface is a bit like a class, except a Java interface can only contain method signatures and fields. An Java interface cannot contain an implementation of the methods, only the signature (name, parameters and exceptions) of the method. You can use interfaces in Java as a way to achieve polymorphism. "

Essentially it means that there is no logic how these methods in the interface should work. But if you have a class that extends an interface, then all the methods in the interface should be implemented and if you need more methods you can add them.

So in the above code that you have asked, List is an interface.

<String>

means the kind of data type is stored in each list item.

For the reason why we have

List myList = new ArrayList<String>();

checkout this question on stackoverflow

Please let me know if I was of any help.

Hi Eric,

Just to add on what Mohit said List is an Interface, and it cannot be instantiated directly ( you can't define it as List<String> myList = new List() because Java compiler won't know which List Implementation you're referring to. ArrayList and LinkedList classes are the standard implementation of the List Interface.

The advantage of defining List as ArrayList or as LinkedList is that it makes it easier to swap your implementation later on to some other kind of List (e.g. a LinkedList, Vector) - you would only need to change that one line where you create it.

Hope that makes some sense.