Book Image

Introduction to Programming

By : Nick Samoylov
Book Image

Introduction to Programming

By: Nick Samoylov

Overview of this book

Have you ever thought about making your computer do what you want it to do? Do you want to learn to program, but just don't know where to start? Instead of guiding you in the right direction, have other learning resources got you confused with over-explanations? Don't worry. Look no further. Introduction to Programming is here to help. Written by an industry expert who understands the challenges faced by those from a non-programming background, this book takes a gentle, hand-holding approach to introducing you to the world of programming. Beginning with an introduction to what programming is, you'll go on to learn about languages, their syntax, and development environments. With plenty of examples for you to code alongside reading, the book's practical approach will help you to grasp everything it has to offer. More importantly, you'll understand several aspects of application development. As a result, you'll have your very own application running by the end of the book. To help you comprehensively understand Java programming, there are exercises at the end of each chapter to keep things interesting and encourage you to add your own personal touch to the code and, ultimately, your application.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

What are standard and external libraries?

A standard library (also called a class standard library) is a collection of classes and interfaces available for all implementations of the language. In simpler terms, this means that, it is a collection of .class files included in the JDK and ready to be used. Once you have installed Java, you get them as part of the installation and can start building your application code up using the classes of the standard library as building blocks that take care of a lot of low-level plumbing. The standard library's richness and ease of usage substantially contributed to Java's popularity.

These collections are organized by packages. That's why instead of saying Java standard library, which would be the correct way to refer to all these collections together, programmers call them Java standard libraries – because, in order...