I’ve always heard other people complain about serialisation issues, but never had to deal with them myself until now.
Here are some quick links:
java.net: (Not So) Stupid Questions 8: serialVersionUID – the discussion that led me to find these other links.
Object Serialization – a great intro to the classes involved in the Serialization process and some means to implement versioning and backward compatibility. It uses a worked example based on an app the author wrote themselves.
Practical Guidelines for Java Serial Version ID and Serialization – covers the use of serialver tool to generate serialUID’s for your classes.