Well there’s no difference between the first two – they’re just using different names for the type parameter (E
or T
).
The third isn’t a valid declaration – ?
is used as a wildcard which is used when providing a type argument, e.g. List<?> foo = ...
means that foo
refers to a list of some type, but we don’t know what.
All of this is generics, which is a pretty huge topic. You may wish to learn about it through the following resources, although there are more available of course:
- Java Tutorial on Generics
- Language guide to generics
- Generics in the Java programming language
- Angelika Langer’s Java Generics FAQ (massive and comprehensive; more for reference though)