Java Introduction
What is Java?
Java is a popular programming language, created in 1995.
It is owned by Oracle, and more than 3 billion devices run Java.
It is used for:
Mobile applications (specially Android apps)
Desktop applications
Web applications
Web servers and application servers
Games
Database connection
And much, much more!
Why Use Java?
Java works on different platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Raspberry Pi,
etc.)
It is one of the most popular programming language in the world
It is easy to learn and simple to use
It is open-source and free
It is secure, fast and powerful
It has a huge community support (tens of millions of developers)
Java is an object oriented language which gives a clear structure to
programs and allows code to be reused, lowering development costs
As Java is close to C++ and C#, it makes it easy for programmers to
switch to Java or vice versa
Get Started
It is not necessary to have any prior programming experience.
Java Install
Some PCs might have Java already installed.
To check if you have Java installed on a Windows PC, search in the start bar for
Java or type the following in Command Prompt (cmd.exe):
C:\Users\Your Name>java -version
If Java is installed, you will see something like this (depending on version):
java version "11.0.1" 2018-10-16 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS, mixed
mode)
If you do not have Java installed on your computer, you can download it for free
at oracle.com.
Note: In this tutorial, we will write Java code in a text editor. However, it is
possible to write Java in an Integrated Development Environment, such as
IntelliJ IDEA, Netbeans or Eclipse, which are particularly useful when managing
larger collections of Java files.
Setup for Windows
To install Java on Windows:
1. Go to "System Properties" (Can be found on Control Panel > System and
Security > System > Advanced System Settings)
2. Click on the "Environment variables" button under the "Advanced" tab
3. Then, select the "Path" variable in System variables and click on the
"Edit" button
4. Click on the "New" button and add the path where Java is installed,
followed by \bin. By default, Java is installed in C:\Program
Files\Java\jdk-11.0.1 (If nothing else was specified when you installed it).
In that case, You will have to add a new path with: C:\Program
Files\Java\jdk-11.0.1\bin
Then, click "OK", and save the settings
5. At last, open Command Prompt (cmd.exe) and type java -version to see
if Java is running on your machine
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Write the following in the command line (cmd.exe):
C:\Users\Your Name>java -version
If Java was successfully installed, you will see something like this (depending on
version):
java version "11.0.1" 2018-10-16 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS, mixed mode)
Java Quickstart
In Java, every application begins with a class name, and that class must match
the filename.
Let us create our first Java file, called Main.java, which can be done in any text
editor (like Notepad).
The file should contain a "Hello World" message, which is written with the
following code:
Main.java
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World");
Do not worry if you do not understand the code above - we will discuss it in
detail in later chapters. For now, focus on how to run the code above.
Save the code in Notepad as "Main.java". Open Command Prompt (cmd.exe),
navigate to the directory where you saved your file, and type "javac Main.java":
C:\Users\Your Name>javac Main.java
This will compile your code. If there are no errors in the code, the command
prompt will take you to the next line. Now, type "java Main" to run the file:
C:\Users\Your Name>java Main
The output should read:
Hello World
Try it Yourself »
Java Syntax
In the previous chapter, we created a Java file called Main.java, and we used
the following code to print "Hello World" to the screen:
Main.java
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World");
Example explained
Every line of code that runs in Java must be inside a class. In our example, we
named the class Main. A class should always start with an uppercase first
letter.
Note: Java is case-sensitive: "MyClass" and "myclass" has different meaning.
The name of the java file must match the class name. When saving the file,
save it using the class name and add ".java" to the end of the filename. To run
the example above on your computer, make sure that Java is properly installed:
The output should be:
Hello World
The main Method
The main() method is required and you will see it in every Java program:
public static void main(String[] args)
Any code inside the main() method will be executed. You do not have to
understand the keywords before and after main. You will get to know them bit
by bit as the lectures continue.
For now, just remember that every Java program has a class name which must
match the filename, and that every program must contain the main() method.
System.out.println()
Inside the main() method, we can use the println() method to print a line of
text to the screen:
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World");
Note: The curly braces {} marks the beginning and the end of a block of code.
Note: Each code statement must end with a semicolon.
Java Comments
Comments can be used to explain Java code, and to make it more readable. It
can also be used to prevent execution when testing alternative code.
Single-line Comments
Single-line comments start with two forward slashes (//).
Any text between // and the end of the line is ignored by Java (will not be
executed).
This example uses a single-line comment before a line of code:
Example
// This is a comment
System.out.println("Hello World");
Try it Yourself »
This example uses a single-line comment at the end of a line of code:
Example
System.out.println("Hello World"); // This is a comment
Try it Yourself »
Java Multi-line Comments
Multi-line comments start with /* and ends with */.
Any text between /* and */ will be ignored by Java.
This example uses a multi-line comment (a comment block) to explain the
code:
Example
/* The code below will print the words Hello World
to the screen, and it is amazing */
System.out.println("Hello World");
Try it Yourself »
NB: Single or multi-line comments?
It is up to you to decide which you want to use. Normally, we use // for short
comments, and /* */ for longer.
Test
