Java Tutorial for beginners – Expert in Java Programming in 10 Days

In this Java tutorial for beginners, we are going to learn about java evolution, development of Java language, java features, Java frameworks, and Java support systems. Java tutorial covers various development tools, classes in Java programming, and Java methods which comprises the Java environment. This tutorial on Java will help you get a quick insight into the Java programming language and thus, help you learn java language.

So, let’s start Java programming for beginners.

What is the Java Programming Language?

Java Programming is a general-purpose object-oriented programming language, designed for the development of software for consumer electronic devices such as TVs, VCRs, toasters, etc.

Java Programming Language is a platform-neutral language, which means it is not tied to any particular hardware or operating system. It guarantees users to ‘write once, run anywhere’. The Java language is supported by almost every operating system, such as Sun Solaris, Red Hat, Windows, etc.

The Java programming language was developed by Sun Microsystems of the USA in 1991. It was originally called Oak by James Gosling, who was one of the inventors of the language. The main goal for the developers was to make the language highly reliable, portable, and simple.

The team for the development of the Java language included Patrick Naughton, who discovered that the existing languages, such as C and C++, had some major drawbacks in terms of reliability and portability. They modeled the new language Java on C and C++ while removing some features that they considered constraints. This made Java a really simple, portable, and powerful language. To learn Java basics, let’s review Java syntax.

History of Java

Java tutorial for beginners states the evolution of Java Programming:

a. 90’s

• 1990 – A team of Sun Microsystems programmers decided to develop special software to manipulate consumer electronic devices. The team headed by James Gosling
• 1991 – The team studied various languages present at that time, viz., C and C++, and announced the new language to “Oak”.
• 1992 – The team at Sun, known as the Green Project, demonstrated the application of their new language. For example, to control a list of home appliances using a handheld device with a tiny touchscreen.
• 1993 – The World Wide Web came to the Internet and transformed the text-based Internet into a graphical, rich environment. The Green Project team came up with the idea of developing Web applets (tiny programs) that could run on all types of computers connected to the internet.
• 1994 – The team developed a web browser called “HotJava” to locate and run applet programs on the Internet. This made it immensely popular amongst internet users.
• 1995 – Oak was renamed “Java” due to some legal snags. Java is a name, no acronym.
• 1996 – Java programming was established as the leader for internet programming and also as a general-purpose object-oriented programming language. Sun releases Java Development Kit 1.0.
• 1997 – Sun releases Java Development Kit 1.1 (JDK 1.1)
• 1998 – Sun releases Java 2 with version 1.2 of the Software Development Kit (SDK 1.2)
• 1999 – Sun releases Java 2 platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) and Enterprise Edition (J2EE)

b. 2000’s

• 2000 – Release of J2SE with SDK 1.3.
• 2002 – The release of J2SE with SDK 1.4.
• 2004 – The release of J2SE with JDK 5.0 (instead of JDK 1.5), known as J2SE 5.0.
• 2006 –  The release of Java SE 6.
• 2011 –  The release of Java SE 7.
• 2014 –  The release of Java SE 8.
• 2017 –  The release of Java SE 9.

Features of Java Programming

The main goal of the inventors was to design a language that could offer solutions to the problems encountered in modern programming. The goal is for the language to be reliable, portable, and distributed, and at the same time simple, compact, and interactive.

In the world of programming languages, Java has established itself as a mainstay. Because of its adaptability and simplicity of use, developers prefer it. The object-oriented paradigm of Java enables programmers to organize their code into reusable modules, which enhances the readability and efficiency of the code. Additionally, Java has an extensive standard library that is full of pre-written classes that speed up common programming tasks. Programmers can create apps that function flawlessly on a variety of operating systems thanks to this extensive library and Java’s built-in portability.

Let’s discuss some Features of Java Programming:

a. Compiled and Interpreted

Java language combines both of these approaches, thus making Java a two-stage system. This approach was never offered before, as any language before was either compiled or interpreted.

Firstly, the Java compiler translates source code into bytecode instructions; bytecodes are not machine instructions.

Secondly, a Java interpreter generates machine code that can be directly executed by the machine that is running the Java program.

b. Independent and Portable 

Java programs can easily move from one system to another, anywhere and anytime. Changes or any upgrade in the operating system, processors, and system resources will not force any changes in Java programs.

Java programming ensures portability in two ways: firstly, the Java compiler generates bytecode instructions that can be implemented on any machine, and secondly, the size of the primitive data types is machine-independent.

c. Object-oriented

Almost everything in Java is an object, which makes it a true object-oriented language. All program code and data reside within objects and classes. Java comes with an extensive set of classes, arranged in packages, which are used in program inheritance.

d. Robust and Secure

Java language provides many safeguards to ensure reliable code. It has strict run-time checking for data types. It is designed as a garbage-collected language, i.e., it captures series errors and eliminates any risk of crashing the system.

Java systems verify all the memory access and thus ensure that no virus is communicated with an applet.

e. Distributed

Java programming facilitates both the sharing of data and programs. Java applications can open and access remote objects on the Internet as easily as on any local system.

f. Simple, Small, and Familiar

Java is a simplified version of C++, which is why it is familiar and yet different, as it eliminates all the redundant and unreliable code. For example, Java does not use pointers, preprocessor header files, and many other features. It also eliminates operator overloading and multiple inheritance in Java.

g. Multithreaded and Interactive

Multithreaded means handling different tasks simultaneously. The Java language supports multithreaded programs, which means that we do not have to wait for one task to finish before another to start. This feature of Java programming greatly improves the interactive performance of graphical applications.

h. High Performance

Java programming performance is very impressive considering the fact that it is an interpreted language, mainly because of the bytecodes. Java architecture is designed to reduce overhead.

i. Dynamic and Extensible

Java is a dynamic language; it is capable of dynamically linking in new class libraries, methods, and objects. It can also determine the type of class through a query.

j. Ease of Development

Java 2 standard edition (J2SE) 5.0 supports features such as Generics, Enhanced for loop, autoboxing or unboxing, typesafe enums, varargs, static import, and annotation. These Java features make it easy for the Java programmer by shifting the responsibility of creating the reusable code to the compiler, and also, the resulting code is free from bugs.

k. Scalability and Performance

J2SE 5.0 improves the startup time and reduces the amount of memory used in the Java 2 runtime environment. Learn more features of Java.

Another aspect of Java’s ongoing appeal is its thriving community. For programmers at all skill levels, there are a ton of online resources, tutorials, and forums available. The Java community offers a multitude of resources and encouragement to support your programming journey, regardless of your level of experience.

C vs Java vs C++

In this Java tutorial for beginners, you will learn the difference between C, C++, and Java programming.

a. C vs Java

The major difference between C and Java programming languages is that Java is an object-oriented language and has a mechanism to define classes and objects in Java. The features of C that are not included in Java are:

• No unique statement keywords of C size and typedef.
• No data types such as struct and union.
• Java does not define the type modifier keywords such as auto, extern, register, signed, and unsigned.
• No support for pointer type.
• Non-availability of the preprocessor
• Java requires that a function with no arguments must be declared with empty parentheses and with the void keyword.
• New Java operators such as instanceof and >>>.
• Java programming has label bcontinues continue statements.

b. Java vs C++

The main difference between C++ and Java is that Java is a true Object-oriented language, while C++ just adds an object-oriented extension to C. The increment operator in C++ indicates the same thing.
The list of features below intentionally omits the Java language to make it better.

• No support for operator overloading.
• No template classes as in C++.
• A new feature called “interface” in Java programming does not support multiple inheritance.
• Java language does not support global variables.
• Java uses a finalize () function instead of the destructor function.
• There are no header files in Java programming.

Let’s discuss Java Regular Expression and Java Array.

Java Language and the Internet

In this section of the Java tutorial for beginners, we will explore how the Internet and Java are related.

Java Programming is often called an Internet language because the first application program written in Java was HotJava, a Web browser to run applets on the Internet. Internet users can use Java to create applets and run them locally using HotJava. A Java-enabled browser to download an applet located anywhere on the Internet.

Java applets have made the Internet a true extension of the storage system on local computers. Internet users can also set up their websites containing Java applets that can be used by remote users.

Java Programming and World Wide Web

Do you know how Java and WWW are related?

World Wide Web (www), an information retrieval system where any information or file is identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and are interlinked via hypertext links.  WWW can be accessed with the help of the internet.

Internet and Java programming both had the same philosophy, and thus they were incorporated with each other easily. Java made it possible for the World Wide Web to support animation, graphics, games, and a wide range of special effects.

To communicate with any web page, Java uses APPLETs. The steps involved are –

1. The user requests a hyperlink to the remote computer’s web server. (a web server receives, processes, and sends the requested document)
2. The document contains the APPLET tag, which identifies the applet.
3. Java source code file compiles the bytecode for that applet, which is then transferred to the user’s computer.
4. The browser, which is enabled by Java programming, then interprets the bytecode and provides the output.

Java Support Systems

The operations of the Java language and Java-enabled browsers on the internet require a variety of support systems, namely,

• Internet Connection
• Web server
• Web Browser
• HTML- A language for creating hypertext for the web.
• APPLET tag
• Java code
• Bytecode
• Proxy Server: an intermediate server between the requesting client workstation and the original server.
• Mail Server

Java Environment

When all the key components of Java are bound together, then we call it a Java environment. It contains the Java Development Kit (JDK) that contains a compiler, an interpreter, the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), which has all the standard libraries of Java, and files to run Java applications & Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to execute the byte code.

It includes a large number of Java development tools, Java classes, and methods.
The Java development tools are part of the system known as Java Development Kit (JDK), and the classes and methods in Java are a part of the Java Standard Library (JSL), also known as the Application Programming Interface (API).

a. Java Development Kit

JDK is a development kit that provides bundles of development tools to run Java programs and applications. Java Development Kit includes-

• appletviewer (for viewing Java applets)
• javac (Java compiler)
• java (Java interpreter )
• javap (Java disassembler)
• javah (for C header files)
• javadoc (for creating HTML files)
• jdb (Java debugger)

b. Application Programming Interface

The Java Standard Library includes classes and packages. Some of the most commonly used packages are-

Language Support Package- A collection of Java classes and methods required for implementing basic features of Java.

• Utility Package- To provide Java utility functions.
• Input/output Package– For Java input/ output manipulation.
• Networking Package– For communicating via the internet.
• AWT Package- The abstract window toolkit package contains classes that implement a platform-independent graphical user interface.
• Applet Package- It allows the creation of Java applets.

c. Java Runtime Environment

It facilitates the execution of Java programs, comprising-

Java Virtual Machine (JVM) – It interprets the intermediate Java bytecode and generates the desired output.

• Runtime class libraries- These are a set of core Java class libraries for the execution of the Java program.
• User interface toolkits- Used for interaction with the Java application program.
• Deployment technologies

1)Java plugin- Enables the execution of a Java applet.
2) Java Web Start- Enables an application to be launched directly from the web browser without installing. Learn more about Java Datatypes and Java Modifiers.

Java Constructs

Constructs are basically reserved keywords in any language that cannot be used in the rest of the programs, i.e., as the names of variables in Java, classes, or methods. Java has around 50 such words; they are-

abstract	for	new	enum	super
assert	goto	package	extends	switch
boolean	if	private	final	synchronized
break	implements	protected	finally	this
byte	import	public	float	throw
case	instance of	continue	while	throws
catch	int	default	return	transient
char	interface	do	short	try
class	long	double	static	void
const	native	else	strictfp	volatile

You can access a wide range of professional options by becoming proficient in Java. In today’s job market, knowing Java is highly desirable due to its widespread use in application development. Proficiency in Java sets you up for success in a variety of industries, such as telecommunications, healthcare, and finance.

So, this was all about the Java Tutorial for beginners. Hope you like our explanation.

Summary

Finally, in this Java tutorial, we learned about the history of the Java programming language, Java features, how Java is different from C and C++, how it incorporates in World Wide Web with the help of Web browsers, and the environment required for running Java applications. Furthermore, if you have any queries, feel free to ask in the comment box.

See also- Best Java Book 

For Reference