Book Image

Java Fundamentals

By : Gazihan Alankus, Rogério Theodoro de Brito, Basheer Ahamed Fazal, Vinicius Isola, Miles Obare
Book Image

Java Fundamentals

By: Gazihan Alankus, Rogério Theodoro de Brito, Basheer Ahamed Fazal, Vinicius Isola, Miles Obare

Overview of this book

Since its inception, Java has stormed the programming world. Its features and functionalities provide developers with the tools needed to write robust cross-platform applications. Java Fundamentals introduces you to these tools and functionalities that will enable you to create Java programs. The book begins with an introduction to the language, its philosophy, and evolution over time, until the latest release. You'll learn how the javac/java tools work and what Java packages are - the way a Java program is usually organized. Once you are comfortable with this, you'll be introduced to advanced concepts of the language, such as control flow keywords. You'll explore object-oriented programming and the part it plays in making Java what it is. In the concluding chapters, you'll get to grips with classes, typecasting, and interfaces, and understand the use of data structures, arrays, strings, handling exceptions, and creating generics. By the end of this book, you will have learned to write programs, automate tasks, and follow advanced courses on algorithms and data structures or explore more advanced Java courses.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Java Fundamentals
Preface

Data Structures and Algorithms


An algorithm is a set of instructions that should be followed to achieve an end goal. They are specific to computing, but we often talk about algorithms to accomplish a certain task in a computer program. When we write computer programs, we generally implement algorithms. For example, when we wish to sort an array or list of numbers, we usually come up with an algorithm to do so. It is a core concept in computer science and important for any good programmer to understand. We have algorithms for sorting, searching, graph problems, string processing, and many more. Java comes with a number of algorithms already implemented for you. However, we still have the scope to define our own.

A data structure is a way to store and organize data in order to facilitate access and modifications. An example of a data structure is an array used to hold several items of the same type or a map used to hold key-value pairs. No single data structure works well for all purposes,...