While the base containers do the grunt work of holding data for most programmers, there are times when something with a bit more functionality and capability is required. Collections are built-in tools that provide specialized alternatives to the regular containers. Most of them are just subclasses or wrappers to existing containers that can make life easier for a developer, provide new features, or just provide more options for a programmer so a developer doesn't have to worry about making boilerplate code and can focus on getting the work done.