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

Summary

In this chapter, we started our discussion on methods by stating that methods are simply code blocks that are given a name for ease of reference. Methods are important because they enable us to abstract away the implementation, while at the same time helping us to avoid unnecessary code duplication.

There are two parts to a method: the method definition (or declaration) and the method call (or invocation). The method definition declares (among other things) the method name, the input parameters, and the return type. The method name and the parameter types (including their order) constitute the method signature. The method call passes down the arguments (if any) to be used as inputs in the method. The return value from a method (if there is one) can be captured by assigning the method call to a variable.

Method overloading is where the same method name is used across several different methods. What distinguishes the various methods is that they have different signatures...