Came accross this the other day when a coworker used sun.misc.Base64Decoder, something didn't feel right about the package name, but I had no justification on why he shouldn't use it. After a bit of searching I found the following link:
Sun Packages FAQ
Quote:
The java.*, javax.* and org.* packages documented in the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition API Specification make up the official, supported, public interface.
If a Java program directly calls only API in these packages, it will operate on all Java-compatible platforms, regardless of the underlying OS platform.
The sun.* packages are not part of the supported, public interface.
A Java program that directly calls into sun.* packages is not guaranteed to work on all Java-compatible platforms. In fact, such a program is not guaranteed to work even in future versions on the same platform.
Makes obvious sense now, but it was actually something I was not aware of.
