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.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Free Chapter

Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on Your Computer

Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on Your Computer

Java platforms, editions, versions, and technologies

Java SE Development Kit (JDK) installation and configuration

Main Java commands

Exercise – JDK tools and utilities

Java Language Basics

Java Language Basics

The basic terms of Java programming

Classes and objects (instances)

Class (static) and object (instance) members

Interface, implementation, and inheritance

Exercise – Interface versus abstract class

Your Development Environment Setup

Your Development Environment Setup

What is the development environment?

Setting the classpath

There are many IDEs out there

Installing and configuring IntelliJ IDEA

Exercise – Installing NetBeans IDE

Your First Java Project

Your First Java Project

What is a project?

Creating a project

Writing an application code

Executing and unit testing an application

Exercise – JUnit @Before and @After annotations

Java Language Elements and Types

Java Language Elements and Types

What are the Java language elements?

Identifiers and variables

Reserved and restricted keywords

Primitive types and literals

Reference types and String

Exercise – Variable declarations and initializations

Interfaces, Classes, and Object Construction

Interfaces, Classes, and Object Construction

What is an API?

Interface and object factory as API

Overloading, overriding, and hiding

This, super, and constructors

Final variable, final method, or final class

Exercise – Restricting a class instantiation to a single shared instance

Packages and Accessibility (Visibility)

Packages and Accessibility (Visibility)

What is importing?

Access modifiers

Exercise – Shadowing

Object-Oriented Design (OOD) Principles

Object-Oriented Design (OOD) Principles

What is the purpose of design?

A roadmap to a good design

Exercise – Design patterns

Operators, Expressions, and Statements

Operators, Expressions, and Statements

What are the core elements of Java programming?

Operator precedence and evaluation order of operands

Widening and narrowing reference types

Widening and narrowing conversion of primitive types

Boxing and unboxing between primitive and reference types

Method equals() of reference types

Exercise – Naming the statements

Control Flow Statements

Control Flow Statements

What is a control flow?

Selection statements

Iteration statements

Branching statements

Exception handling statements

Exercise – Infinite loop

JVM Processes and Garbage Collection

JVM Processes and Garbage Collection

What are JVM processes?

JVM architecture

How to execute the main(String[]) method

Garbage collection

Exercise – Monitoring JVM while running an application

Java Standard and External Libraries

Java Standard and External Libraries

What are standard and external libraries?

Java standard libraries

Java external libraries

Exercise – Comparing String.indexOf() and StringUtils.indexOf()

Java Collections

Java Collections

What are collections?

List - ArrayList preserves order

Set - HashSet does not allow duplicates

Map – HashMap stores/retrieves objects by key

Exercise – EnumSet methods

Managing Collections and Arrays

Managing Collections and Arrays

Managing collections

Exercise – Sort list of objects

Managing Objects, Strings, Time, and Random Numbers

Managing Objects, Strings, Time, and Random Numbers

Managing objects

Managing strings

Managing random numbers

Exercise – Objects.equals() result

Database Programming

Database Programming

What is Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)?

Creating a database and its structure

Create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) data

Exercise – Selecting unique first names

Lambda Expressions and Functional Programming

Lambda Expressions and Functional Programming

Functional programming

Lambda expressions

Exercise – Using the method reference to create a new object

Streams and Pipelines

Streams and Pipelines

What is a stream?

Creating a stream

Intermediate operations

Terminal operations

Numeric stream interfaces

Parallel processing

Exercise – Multiplying all the stream elements

Reactive Systems

Reactive Systems

How to process a lot of data quickly

Reactive systems

Exercise – Creating io.reactivex.Observable

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Summary

In this chapter, you have learned the most important Java related terms—JVM, JDK, SDK, Java platform, and others, covering the main phases of a Java program's life cycle, from source code to bytecode to execution. You also learned about Java's history, the motivation behind its creation, its editions, and its versions. The practical steps and advice provided have helped you to install Java on your computer and exercise its main commands, java, javac, and jcmd. For more details, you were referred to the official Oracle documentation. The ability to find and understand this documentation is a prerequisite for a successful career as a Java programmer, so we recommend that you follow all of the provided links and do some related searching on the internet, so that you feel comfortable finding good sources of information.

In the next chapter, we will dive into Java as a programming language, and will cover the basics. This will become a foundation (or a jumping board, if you will) for the following chapters. If you are new to Java, we recommend that you continue reading without skipping, because each chapter is built on knowledge from the previous one. Even if you have some Java exposure, it is always helpful to review the basics again. Repetitio est mater studiorum (Repetition is the mother of study/learning), says a Latin proverb.