Absolute Java!

Java was one of the first programming languages that I worked with long ago. It took the world by storm in the year 1995 and I have been in touch with it since 1999 because of its platform independence feature which was a huge game changer then. Java has undergone tremendous transformations through the years and many features have been added. Some features have also been deprecated. But the core of the Java programming language continues to remain the same.

I got two Sun Java certifications in 1999 and 2005. Programming is always a fun ride though it is a tricky one for beginners. But once you get the hang of it, programming is always a delight! 🙂

Join me as I try to teach basic Java through my posts! 🙂

Disclaimer: Though I hope to teach Java through my posts, some amount of programming knowledge is helpful as Java is again a very, very vast topic.

Before we start, here are a few pointers:

Important point:

1. Java is a case sensitive language. So, ‘Java’ is different from ‘java’

2. Every statement in Java must end with a semi-colon

What is Java?

The object oriented programming language Java was first released by Sun Microsystems in the year 1995. It was created by James Gosling and his team of researchers in a bid to create an object oriented programming and platform independent programming language. It was initially called as ‘Oak’ and was later rechristened to ‘Java’. Sun Microsystems was acquired by Oracle and now Java is a part of Oracle.

It has powered millions of software such as mobile applications, desktop applications, gaming applications, cloud based applications and more.

It is freely downloadable and it is available from this link

In order to know Java, here are a few things that you need to have knowledge of:

Class: What is Class? Everything in life can be termed as a ‘Class’! 🙂 A Class is a blueprint for Objects which have methods (behavior) and variables(state) . As an example, if ‘Car’ can be considered as a ‘Class’, each ‘Car’ can be considered to be an ‘Object’.

Object: An instance of a Class is an Object. Continuing, with the above example, every ‘Car’ can be considered to be an ‘Object’.

Method: ‘Methods’ are present in a ‘Class’. Methods tell Objects what they should do. As an example, moveforward(), movebackward() may be some methods of a class ‘Car’.

Variable: Variables describe the Objects of the Class. As an example, a ‘Car’ may have the color black, blue or silver and hence ‘Color’ is one of the variables that is present in the ‘Car’ class.

Sample program:

Let us see a sample program and see the different components of a Java program:

For the time being, just click the ‘Execute’ button and experience the joy of successfully seeing the message ‘Hello World’ on the screen!

For the sake of explaining Java through these posts, I have embedded an online Java compiler onto my post. However, you can use any other Java compiler like Eclipse, IntelliJ, Netbeans, BlueJ.

And we have created and worked with our first Java program!! We will see the details of this program in the coming posts!!

Isn’t it amazing to print the message “Hello World” on the screen?!! 🙂

Let’s learn more about Java tomorrow….

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