Perhaps it was added in the newer versions of JDK.
Perhaps, The latest one i have is Java Network Programming. Oreilly, by Elliotte Rusty Harold. Second Edition which covers java 1.2 & 1.3 This dude knows his stuff. It does make sense to encode all url's first. He really didn't say that, and i don't know if that is common to do in the work place (since i have never had a programming job). but it makes sense to do.