When using generic collections, a cast is not needed to get (declared type) elements out of the collection. : generics « Utility Classes « SCJP

1. SCJP
2. Utility Classes
3. generics

With non-generic collections, a cast is required:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class MainClass{
    public static void main(String[] argv){
      List<String> gList = new ArrayList<String>();
      List list = new ArrayList();
      // more code
      String s = gList.get(0);           // no cast needed
      s = (String)list.get(0);    // cast required

    }
}