Signed bytes in Java, What's the big idea?
<p>Byte value is between 0 and 255, very simple and straight forward. Java didn't think so however and decided that values to be between -128 and 128 and ruined my life and many others.</p>

<p>I just want to know what's the big idea? why everytime i need to get the unsigned byte value do I have to do this:</p>

<pre><code>int byteValue = (int) javaByte &amp; 0xFF;
</code></pre>