Java Reference
In-Depth Information
She starts—she moves—she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
The Building of the Ship
Introduction
This chapter introduces you to the Java language and gives you enough details to allow
you to write simple programs involving expressions, assignments, and console output.
The details about assignments and expressions are similar to that of most other high-
level languages. Every language has its own way of handling strings and console output,
so even the experienced programmer should look at that material. Even if you are
already an experienced programmer in some language other than Java, you should read
at least the subsection entitled “A Sample Java Application Program” in Section 1.1 and
preferably all of Section 1.2. You should also read all of Section 1.3 (on strings) and at
least skim Section 1.4 to find out about Java defined constants and comments.
Prerequisites
This topic is self-contained and requires no preparation other than some simple high
school algebra.
1.1
Introduction to Java
Eliminating the middle man is not necessarily a good idea.
Found in my old economics class notes.
In this section, we give you an overview of the Java programming language.
Origins of the Java Language
★
Java is well-known as a programming language for Internet applications. However,
this topic, and many other topics and programmers, consider Java a general-purpose
programming language that is suitable for most any application, whether it involves
the Internet or not. The first version of Java was neither of these things, but it evolved
into both.
In 1991, James Gosling led a team at Sun Microsystems that developed the first
version of Java (which was not yet called
Java
). This first version of the language was
