Exercise 11.15: maxOccurrences : Practice-It

public static int maxOccurrences(List<Integer> list) {
   if(list.isEmpty()) {
      return 0;
   } else {
      Map<Integer, Integer> m = new HashMap<Integer,Integer>();
      Iterator<Integer> it = list.iterator();
      int max = 0;
      while( it.hasNext() ) {
         int next = it.next();
         int val = 0;
         if( m.containsKey(next) ) {
            int value = m.get(next)+1;
            m.put(next, value);
            val = value;
         } else {
            m.put(next, 1);
            val = 1;
         }
         if( val>max ) {
            max = val;
         }
      }
      return max;
   }
}