Introduction to Java and computers

CHAPTER
1
Introduction
to Computers
and Java
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken NJ

©2016 Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ. All Rights Reserved. 1-2
Chapter Topics
Chapter 1 discusses the following main topics:
– Introduction
– Why Program?
– Computer Systems: Hardware and Software
– Programming Languages
– What Is a Program Made Of?
– The Programming Process
– Object-Oriented Programming

Java History
• 1991 - Green Team started by Sun
Microsystems (now owned by Oracle).
• *7 Handheld controller for multiple
entertainment systems.
• There was a need for a programming language
that would run on various devices.
• Java (first named Oak) was developed for this
purpose.

Introduction
• Java enabled web browser (HotJava)
demonstrated at 1995 Sun World conference.
• Java incorporated into Netscape shortly after.
• Java is “cross platform”, meaning that it can
run on various computer operating systems.

Java Applications and Applets
• Java programs can be of two types:
– Applications
• Stand-alone programs that run without the aid of a web
browser.
• Relaxed security model since the user runs the program
locally.
– Applets
• Small applications that require the use of a Java enabled
web browser to run.
• Enhanced security model since the user merely goes to a
web page and the applet runs itself.

Why Program?
• Computers are tools that can be programmed to
perform many functions, such as:
• Computers are versatile because they can be
programmed.
• Computer Programmers implement programs
that perform these functions.
• spreadsheets
• databases
• word processing
• games
• etc.

Why Program?
Aspects of a computer program that must be designed:
– The logical flow of the instructions
– The mathematical procedures
– The layout of the programming statements
– The appearance of the screens
– The way information is presented to the user
– The program’s “user friendliness”
– Manuals, help systems, and/or other forms of written
documentation.

Why Program?
• Programs must be analytically correct as well.
• Programs rarely work the first time they are
programmed.
• Programmers must perform the following on a
continual basis:
– analyze,
– experiment,
– correct, and
– redesign.
• Programming languages have strict rules, known as
syntax, that must be carefully followed.

Computer Systems: Hardware
• Computer hardware components are the
physical pieces of the computer.
• The major hardware components of a computer
are:
– The central processing unit (CPU)
– Main memory
– Secondary storage devices
– Input and Output devices

Central Processing Unit
Instruction (input) Result (output)
Arithmetic
Logic
Unit
Control
Unit
CPU

Central Processing Unit
– The CPU performs the fetch, decode, execute cycle
in order to process program information.
Fetch
The CPU’s control unit fetches, from main memory,
the next instruction in the sequence of program instructions.
Decode
The instruction is encoded in the form of a number.
The control unit decodes the instruction and
generates an electronic signal.
Execute
The signal is routed to the appropriate component
of the computer (such as the ALU, a disk drive, or
some other device). The signal causes the
component to perform an operation.

Main Memory
• Commonly known as random-access memory
(RAM)
• RAM contains:
– currently running programs
– data used by those programs.
• RAM is divided into units called bytes.
• A byte consists of eight bits that may be either
on or off.

Main Memory
• A bit is either on or off:
– 1 = on
– 0 = off
• The bits form a pattern that represents a character or a
number.
• Each byte in memory is assigned a unique number
known as an address.
• RAM is volatile, which means that when the computer
is turned off, the contents of RAM are erased.
1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0

Main Memory
A section of memory is called a byte.
A section of two or four bytes is
often called a word.
Main memory can be visualized as a column or row of cells.
0x000
0x001
0x003
0x002
0x004
0x005
0x006
0x007
A byte is made up of 8 bits.1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

Secondary Storage Devices
• Secondary storage devices are capable of
storing information for longer periods of time
(non-volatile).
• Common Secondary Storage devices:
• Disk drive
• External drive
• CD drive
• Solid state drive
• USB drive
• DVD drive

Input Devices
• Input is any data the computer collects from the
outside world.
• That data comes from devices known as input
devices.
• Common input devices:
– Keyboard
– Mouse
– Scanner
– Digital camera

Output Devices
• Output is any data the computer sends to the outside
world.
• That data is displayed on devices known as output
devices.
• Common output devices:
– Monitors
– Printers
• Some devices such as disk drives perform input and
output and are called I/O devices (input/output).

Computer Systems: Software
• Software refers to the programs that run on a
computer.
• There are two classifications of software:
– Operating Systems
– Application Software

Operating Systems
• An operating system is a set of programs that
manages the computer’s hardware devices and
controls their processes.
• Most all modern operating systems are
multitasking.

Operating Systems
• A multitasking operating system is capable of running
multiple programs at once.
– Unix
– Linux
– Mac OS
– Windows
• The technique is called time sharing.
• A multitasking system divides the allocation of
hardware resources and the attention of the CPU
among all the executing programs.

Application Software
• Application software refers to programs that make the
computer useful to the user.
• Application software provides a more specialized type
of environment for the user to work in.
• Common application software:
– Spreadsheets
– Word processors
– Accounting software
– Tax software
– Games

Programming Languages
• A program is a set of instructions a computer follows
in order to perform a task.
• A programming language is a special language used to
write computer programs.
• A computer program is a set of instructions that enable
the computer to solve a problem or perform a task.
• Collectively, these instructions form an algorithm

• An algorithm is a set of well defined steps to
completing a task.
• The steps in an algorithm are performed sequentially.
• A computer needs the algorithm to be written in
machine language.
• Machine language is written using binary numbers.
• The binary numbering system (base 2) only has two
digits (0 and 1).

• The binary numbers are encoded as a machine
language.
• Each CPU has its own machine language.
– Motorola 68000 series processors
– Intel x86 series processors
– ARM processors, etc.
• Example of a machine language instruction:
1011010000000101

• In the distant past, programmers wrote
programs in machine language.
• Programmers developed higher level
programming languages to make things easier.
• The first of these was assembler.
• Assembler made things easier but was also
processor dependent.

• High level programming languages followed
that were not processor dependent.
• Some common programming languages:
Java
BASIC C++
C
Python
COBOL
JavaScript
Ruby
PHP
C#
Visual Basic
Pascal

Common Language Elements
• There are some concepts that are common to
virtually all programming languages.
• Common concepts:
– Key words
– Operators
– Punctuation
– Programmer-defined identifiers
– Strict syntactic rules.

Sample Program
public class HelloWorld
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String message = "Hello World";
System.out.println(message);
}
}

Sample Program
• Key words in the sample program are:
• Key words are lower case (Java is a case
sensitive language).
• Key words cannot be used as a programmer-
defined identifier.
•public
•class
•static
•void

• Semi-colons are used to end Java statements;
however, not all lines of a Java program end a
statement.
• Part of learning Java is to learn where to
properly use the punctuation.

Lines vs Statements
• There are differences between lines and
statements when discussing source code.
System.out.println(
message);
• This is one Java statement written using two
lines. Do you see the difference?
• A statement is a complete Java instruction that
causes the computer to perform an action.

Variables
• Data in a Java program is stored in memory.
• Variable names represent a location in memory.
• Variables in Java are sometimes called fields.
• Variables are created by the programmer who assigns
it a programmer-defined identifier.
example: int hours = 40;
• In this example, the variable hours is created as an
integer (more on this later) and assigned the value of
40.

Variables
• Variables are simply a name given to represent
a place in memory.
0x000
0x001
0x002
0x003
0x004
0x005
0x006
0x007

Variables
0x000
0x001
0x002
0x003
0x004
0x005
0x006
0x007
The Java Virtual
Machine (JVM)
actually decides
where the value
will be placed
in memory.
72
Assume that the this
variable declaration
has been made.
int length = 72;
The variable length
is a symbolic name
for the memory
location 0x003.

The Compiler and the Java Virtual
Machine
• A programmer writes Java programming
statements for a program.
• These statements are known as source code.
• A text editor is used to edit and save a Java
source code file.
• Source code files have a .java file extension.
• A compiler is a program that translates
source code into an executable form.

Machine
• A compiler is run using a source code file as
input.
• Syntax errors that may be in the program will
be discovered during compilation.
• Syntax errors are mistakes that the programmer
has made that violate the rules of the
programming language.
• The compiler creates another file that holds the
translated instructions.

Machine
• Most compilers translate source code into
executable files containing machine code.
• The Java compiler translates a Java source file
into a file that contains byte code instructions.
• Byte code instructions are the machine
language of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
and cannot be directly executed directly by the
CPU.

Machine
• Byte code files end with the .class file
extension.
• The JVM is a program that emulates a micro-
processor.
• The JVM executes instructions as they are read.
• JVM is often called an interpreter.
• Java is often referred to as an interpreted
language.

Program Development Process
Text editor Source code
(.java)
Saves Java statements
Java compiler
Is read by
Byte code
(.class)
Produces
Java
Virtual
Machine
Is interpreted by
Program
Execution
Results in

Portability
• Portable means that a program may be written on one
type of computer and then run on a wide variety of
computers, with little or no modification.
• Java byte code runs on the JVM and not on any
particular CPU; therefore, compiled Java programs are
highly portable.
• JVMs exist on many platforms:
•Unix
•BSD
•Etc.
•Windows
•Mac
•Linux

Portability
• With most programming languages, portability
is achieved by compiling a program for each
CPU it will run on.
• Java provides an JVM for each platform so that
programmers do not have to recompile for
different platforms.

Portability
Java Virtual
Machine for Windows
Byte code
(.class)
Java Virtual
Machine for Linux
Java Virtual
Machine for Mac
Java Virtual
Machine for Unix

Java Versions
• The software you use to write Java programs is
called the Java Development Kit, or JDK.
• There are different editions of the JDK:
– Java SE - Java2 Standard Edition.
– Java EE - Java2 Enterprise Edition.
– Java ME - Java2 Micro Edition.
• Available for download at
http://java.oracle.com

Compiling a Java Program
• The Java compiler is a command line utility.
• The command to compile a program is:
java filename.java
• javac is the Java compiler.
• The .java file extension must be used.
Example: To compile a java source code file named
Payroll.java you would use the command:
javac Payroll.java

The Programming Process
1. Clearly define what the program is to do.
2. Visualize the program running on the computer.
3. Use design tools to create a model of the program.
4. Check the model for logical errors.

The Programming Process
5. Enter the code and compile it.
6. Correct any errors found during compilation.
Repeat Steps 5 and 6 as many times as necessary.
7. Run the program with test data for input.
8. Correct any runtime errors found while
running the program.
Repeat Steps 5 through 8 as many times as necessary.
9. Validate the results of the program.

Software Engineering
• Encompasses the whole process of crafting computer
software.
• Software engineers perform several tasks in the
development of complex software projects.
– designing,
– writing,
– testing,
– debugging,
– documenting,
– modifying, and
– maintaining.

• Software engineers develop:
– program specifications,
– diagrams of screen output,
– diagrams representing the program components and
the flow of data,
– pseudocode,
– examples of expected input and desired output.

• Software engineers also use special software designed
for testing programs.
• Most commercial software applications are large and
complex.
• Usually a team of programmers, not a single
individual, develops them.
• Program requirements are thoroughly analyzed and
divided into subtasks that are handled by
– individual teams
– individuals within a team.

Procedural Programming
• Older programming languages were procedural.
• A procedure is a set of programming language
statements that, together, perform a specific
task.
• Procedures typically operate on data items that
are separate from the procedures.
• In a procedural program, the data items are
commonly passed from one procedure to
another.

Procedure A
Data Element
Procedure B

• In procedural programming, procedures are
developed to operate on the program’s data.
• Data in the program tends to be global to the
entire program.
• Data formats might change and thus, the
procedures that operate on that data must
change.

Object-Oriented Programming
• Object-oriented programming is centered on
creating objects rather than procedures.
• Objects are a melding of data and procedures
that manipulate that data.
• Data in an object are known as attributes.
• Procedures in an object are known as methods.

Object
Attributes (data)
Methods
(behaviors / procedures)

• Object-oriented programming combines data and
behavior via encapsulation.
• Data hiding is the ability of an object to hide data from
other objects in the program.
• Only an objects methods should be able to directly
manipulate its attributes.
• Other objects are allowed manipulate an object’s
attributes via the object’s methods.
• This indirect access is known as a programming
interface.

Object
Attributes (data)
typically private to this object
Methods
(behaviors / procedures)
Other
objects
Programming
Interface

Introduction to Java and computers

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