Book Image

Learn Java with Projects

By : Dr. Seán Kennedy, Maaike van Putten
5 (3)
Book Image

Learn Java with Projects

5 (3)
By: Dr. Seán Kennedy, Maaike van Putten

Overview of this book

Learn Java with Projects stands out in the world of Java guides; while some books skim the surface and others get lost in too much detail, this one finds a nice middle ground. You’ll begin by exploring the fundamentals of Java, from its primitive data types through to loops and arrays. Next, you’ll move on to object-oriented programming (OOP), where you’ll get to grips with key topics such as classes, objects, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, interfaces, and more. The chapters are designed in a way that focuses on topics that really matter in real-life work situations. No extra fluff here, so that you get more time to spend on the basics and form a solid foundation. As you make progress, you’ll learn advanced topics including generics, collections, lambda expressions, streams and concurrency. This book doesn't just talk about theory—it shows you how things work with little projects, which eventually add up to one big project that brings it all together. By the end of this Java book, you’ll have sound practical knowledge of Java and a helpful guide to walk you through the important parts of Java.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Part 1: Java Fundamentals
9
Part 2: Object-Oriented Programming
15
Part 3: Advanced Topics

Understanding concurrency

Have you ever wondered how many tasks a computer can truly run simultaneously? It’s tempting to say several, yet, in reality, a single-core computer can only execute one process at a given instant. This might appear as simultaneous due to the impressive speed at which CPUs switch between processes, thus creating the illusion of simultaneous multitasking.

Concurrency is the concept of executing multiple tasks or threads at the same time, rather than sequentially. In a sequential system, tasks are executed one after the other, with each task waiting for its predecessor to complete before starting.

For our Java applications, concurrency refers to executing different segments of a program, simultaneously. The term simultaneously might be a little ambiguous here, as it could mean multiple things – and that is because concurrency can occur at the hardware level, such as in multi-core processors, or at the software level. An OS could schedule...