Java For Dummies

Barry Burd, PhD, is a computer science professor at Drew University. The author of Java Programming for Android Developers For Dummies, Beginning Programming with Java For Dummies, and Android Application Development All-in-One For Dummies, Barry also writes for Server Side (theserverside.com), Android Authority (androidauthority.com), InfoQ.com and numerous other online publications.

Introduction 1 How to Use This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book 2 What You Don't Have to Read 2 Foolish Assumptions 3 How This Book Is Organized 4 Part 1: Getting Started with Java 4 Part 2: Writing Your Own Java Program 4 Part 3: Working with the Big Picture: Object-Oriented Programming 5 Part 4: Smart Java Techniques 5 Part 5: The Part of Tens 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Beyond the Book 6 Where to Go from Here 7 Part 1: Getting Started with Java 9 Chapter 1: All about Java 11 What You Can Do with Java 12 Why You Should Use Java 13 Getting Perspective: Where Java Fits In 14 Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) 16 Object-oriented languages 16 Objects and their classes 18 What's so good about an object-oriented language? 19 Refining your understanding of classes and objects 21 What's Next? 23 Chapter 2: All about Software 25 Quick-Start Instructions 25 What You Install on Your Computer 28 What is a compiler? 29 What is a Java Virtual Machine? 32 Developing software 39 What is an integrated development environment? 40 Chapter 3: Using the Basic Building Blocks 43 Speaking the Java Language 43 The grammar and the common names 44 The words in a Java program 45 Checking Out Java Code for the First Time 47 Understanding a Simple Java Program 48 The Java class 49 The Java method 50 The main method in a program 52 How you finally tell the computer to do something 53 Curly braces 55 And Now, a Few Comments 59 Adding comments to your code 60 What's Barry's excuse? 63 Using comments to experiment with your code 63 Part 2: Writing Your Own Java Programs 65 Chapter 4: Making the Most of Variables and Their Values 67 Varying a Variable 68 Assignment statements 70 The types of values that variables may have 71 Displaying text 74 Numbers without decimal points 75 Combining declarations and initializing variables 77 Experimenting with JShell 78 What Happened to All the Cool Visual Effects? 82 The Atoms: Java's Primitive Types 82 The char type 83 The boolean type 85 The Molecules and Compounds: Reference Types 87 An Import Declaration 91 Creating New Values by Applying Operators 93 Initialize once, assign often 97 The increment and decrement operators 98 Assignment operators 102 Chapter 5: Controlling Program Flow with Decision-Making Statements 105 Making Decisions (Java if Statements) 106 Guess the number 106 She controlled keystrokes from the keyboard 107 Creating randomness 110 The if statement 111 The double equal sign 112 Brace yourself 112 Indenting if statements in your code 113 Elseless in Ifrica 114 Using Blocks in JShell 116 Forming Conditions with Comparisons and Logical Operators 117 Comparing numbers; comparing characters 117 Comparing objects 118 Importing everything in one fell swoop 121 Java's logical operators 121 Vive les nuls! 124 (Conditions in parentheses) 125 Building a Nest 127 Choosing among Many Alternatives (Java switch Statements) 130 Your basic switch statement 130 To break or not to break 134 Strings in a switch statement 136 Chapter 6: Controlling Program Flow with Loops 139 Repeating Instructions Over and Over Again (Java while Statements) 140 Repeating a Certain Number of Times (Java for Statements) 143 The anatomy of a for statement 145 The world premiere of "Al's All Wet" 147 Repeating until You Get What You Want (Java do Statements) 150 Reading a single character 154 File handling in Java 154 Variable declarations and blocks 156 Part 3: Working with the Big Picture: Object-Oriented Programming 159 Chapter 7: Thinking in Terms of Classes and Objects 161 Defining a Class (What It Means to Be an Account) 162 Declaring variables and creating objects 164 Initializing a variable 167 Using an object's fields 167 One program; several classes 168 Public classes 168 Defining a Method within a Class (