Claret College of Isabela

Senior High School

P.O. Box 8692 Roxas Avenue, Isabela City, Basilan Province, 7300 Philippines
Tel. No. (062) 200 - 7697 / 200 – 7009 Telefax: (062) 200 - 3865

NAME:___________________________________________ DATE: ___________________

COURSE AND YEAR: ______________________________ OUTPUT NO: 5
Chapter Three: The Basics of Java Code
(LESSON /OUTPUT TITLE)
LESSON OBJECTIVE:
1. Describe what object-oriented programming is all
about; and
2. Encode your first simple Java program and
understand the importance of every part.
Values integration:

Integrity witnesses of faith, upholds our Claretian principle and lives a moral and dignified
life.

Excellence strives for perfection and holiness, pursues academic excellence in achieving
holistic transformation.

EXPLORE AND EXPLAIN:

Identification.

1. What is Main Method’s Heading?

____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

2. What is System.out.println?
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

3. What is Class Heading?

____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________

4.What is Comments?

Learning/Activity Sheet
(APPLY PROGRAMMING SKILL IN JAVA- SARDUAL)
 Claret College of Isabela
Senior High School
P.O. Box 8692 Roxas Avenue, Isabela City, Basilan Province, 7300 Philippines
Tel. No. (062) 200 - 7697 / 200 – 7009 Telefax: (062) 200 - 3865
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter Three: The Basics of Java Code

Before you start writing lines of Java code, this chapter will describe first what object-oriented
programming is all about (which is one of the primary characteristics of Java programming). You will
also encode your first simple Java program and understand the importance of every part. Also, you will
be introduced to classes, objects and instances.

One must understand that the heart of Java language methodology is object-oriented programming
(OOP). Over the years, software developers are progressively trying to find ways on how decrease the
complexity of encoding programs. The first generation of programming languages involved toggling of
binary machine codes, which are only a few hundred instructions long, into the computer’s front panel.
When programs evolved that required IT experts to handle more complex instructions through symbolic
representations, then the assembly language was developed. As programming methodologies were
enhanced, more high-level languages were introduced. One example is FORTRAN, however, codes
were not easy-to-understand yet.

Structured programming emerged during the 1960s that was used in C and Pascal languages. These
programs were characterized by local variables, rich control constructs and stand-alone subroutines,
among others. Even if they were considered as power tools, they are still limited when handling very
large projects.

The demand for breaking through the barriers of encoding extremely large projects paved way to the
advent of object-oriented programming. It is a combination of the best methodologies of structured
programming plus new organizing concepts. This programming style is characterized by the following:

 Encapsulation
By the name itself, encapsulation is a strategy that binds the programming code and the data it
manipulates and keeps them safe from outside interference. When code and data are linked
together, an object is created. This object contains code and data that are either private or public.
A private code or data cannot be accessed by any program that exists outside the said object.
When it is public, then the other parts of the program are able to access even if they are not
within the object.

 Polymorphism
This concept is often described as creating a single interface for multiple methods. It means you
design a generic interface to a group of related activities. It further reduces the complexity of the
program by letting the same interface to be used to specify a general class of action. A clear
analogy is the steering wheel. No matter what type of steering wheel, whether a manual steering or
a power steering, as long as you know how it works then you can drive any type of car.

 Inheritance

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 Claret College of Isabela
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Tel. No. (062) 200 - 7697 / 200 – 7009 Telefax: (062) 200 - 3865
This process involves one object acquiring the properties of another object, which supports the
concept of hierarchical classification. To better explain this, imagine a red delicious watermelon
which belongs to the classification watermelon. The watermelon is further part of the fruit class,
which belongs to a larger class called food. The food class has certain qualities such as edible and
nutritious, that is further applied to its subclass fruit. The fruit has certain qualities
as well, such as juicy and sweet. Now for the watermelon, it also has attributes specific to it, such
as a tropical vine-like plant. Now combining all these qualities makes a unique red delicious
watermelon.

Object-oriented programming is characterized by the application and organization of classes, objects and
instances. These are actually the components that make up a Java program and are interconnected with
one another.
 Class - Considered as the highest group, class encompasses everything in object-oriented
programming.
 Object - Specifications set by the classes are being applied to the objects that are not loaded into
the computer’s memory. They are also instances of a class that act as blueprints ready to be used
when needed. Thus, one class can have any number of objects associated with it (can even have
zero objects).
 Instance - Can be the same as objects since they describe an individual instantiation.

To understand their relationship with one another, imagine that you are developing a computer program
that will keep track of the students enrolling in a school. Each student has a distinctive feature – hair
style, eye color, skin complexion, height, weight and many more. In your OOP program, each student is
an object. Now, even if the students differ from one another, they share the same list of physical
features. These attributes or characteristics need to be compiled into a master list, which we call a class.

First Simple Java Program

Let us try again to encode a short sample program by following these instructions:
1. Launch Eclipse. Click FILE > NEW > JAVA PROJECT. Name your new project as EXAMPLE.

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2. Create a new EXAMPLE class. Click FILE > NEW > CLASS > Type EXAMPLE for the class name.
3. Enter, compile and run the following program:

Encoding the Java program

In Java, a source file is called a compilation unit and the name that you give a source file is very
important. By convention, the name of the main class should match the name of the file that holds the
program. Take note that Java programming is case sensitive, which means the compiler distinguishes
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between lowercase and uppercase letters. Also, the filename extension required by the compiler is .java.
Following this programming convention makes it easier to organize and keep track of your lines of code.
Also, if you
change the capitalization or the naming convention, then the whole program becomes meaningless and
will stop working. So for this activity, we named it Example.java (since the public class defined by the
program is also Example).

Compiling the Java Program

In this stage, the compiler javac is being executed and creates a file called Example.class that contains
the bytecode version of the program. In the previous discussion, the bytecode is executed by the Java
Virtual Machine. To actually run the program, use the Java interpreter called java by passing the class
name Example as a command-line argument as shown below:

java Example

The following output is displayed when the program is run:

Java is essential to the Web

During compilation, each individual class is placed into its own output file named after the class with
.class extension. It has been a convention to name your Java source file the same name as the class file
so that when you execute the Java interpreter, you are actually specifying the name of the class that you
want to be executed.

Parts of the Java Program

 Comments
Comments are the descriptive parts of the program that explain what the codes are all about.
They are special sections of text that improve the program’s readability - helping
people understand the operation of the program. Basically, these are the words that we humans
read but the compiler totally ignores. There are two types of comments, depending on how you
write them:

1. One-Line or End-of-Line Comment

Starting with two slashes, this comment text is short enough to fit on one line. It is also written at the
end of a line of code. In the previous simple Java program example, the one-line comment that we have
is:

// A Java program begins with a call to main ().

Everything is ignored by the compiler starting from the first slash up to the end of the line.

2. Block or Multi-Line Comment

This type is characterized by multiple one-line comments (meaning, your comment text is too long to fit
in one line). However, the two slashes are replaced with an opening “/*” at the start of the comment and

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P.O. Box 8692 Roxas Avenue, Isabela City, Basilan Province, 7300 Philippines
Tel. No. (062) 200 - 7697 / 200 – 7009 Telefax: (062) 200 - 3865
ends with a closing “*/” (to save time in writing “//” for every line). Again, the compiler ignores
everything between the two slashes. In the previous simple Java program example, we have:

/*
* This is a simple Java program
*
* Call this file Example.java
*/

Prologue is a version of a block comment that is placed at the top or very beginning of your programs. It
contains important information about the code so that every programmer will be able to get an idea what
the program is all about just by merely glancing at it. Usually, the prologue is enclosed in a box of
asterisks and includes the following information: filename, programmer’s name and program
description. If we are
to modify the block comment above, it will look like this:

/*********************************************************************
* Example.java
* Felix & Khatz
*
* This is a simple program that displays “Java is essential to the Web” on your
PC screen
************************************************************************/

 Class Heading

We now move to the next line in our first simple Java program:

public class Example {

This program line is called the class heading or class declaration, which is composed of 4 parts – the 3
words and the open curly brace (actually the entire program is considered as a class). Let’s discuss each
one of them.

The first two words, public and class are what we call reserved words or keywords. Such words are used
for a particular purpose as defined by the Java language. You cannot redefine or use them to mean
something else, like making them as names for your program. Below is a list of the common keywords
in Java language:

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Analyzing each word, class is a marker that signifies the start of the class or the beginning of the
program. It also states that a new class is being defined. In our first simple program, Example is the
name of the class. On the other hand, public is an access modifier that controls how the class is being
accessed (in this case, the information can be accessed by all other classes). If it was set to private
instead of public, then only the current class has the access to it. Finally, the open curly brace
“{“indicates the beginning of the class and has a corresponding closing brace “}” at the end of the entire
program. Always coming in pairs, braces identify groupings of code for both the programmer and the
computer.

 Main Method’s Heading

After the class heading, the main method heading comes next. Method is a subroutine in Java language
that is the line of code at which the program will begin executing. It is simply a list of things to do. In
our example, the main method has the following form:

public static void main(String args[]) {

Again, public is an access modifier keyword, which indicates that everyone can access the main
method. This also means that this can be accessed by the code outside the class in which it was defined
or declared. Static, also another reserved word, denotes that the method can be accessed immediately.
The third reserved word is void that signifies the main method returns nothing (in some programs it
could return a value).
Any information that is needed to pass to a method is received by variables specified within the set of
parentheses that follow the name of the method. These variables are also called parameters and in our
example it is only (String args[]). The declared parameter named args represents the arguments that the
main method takes. String is the argument’s type that stores sequences of characters. The square
brackets “[]” symbolizes that it is an array of objects of type strings. Even if there are no parameters
required, you still need to indicate the empty parentheses.

 System.out.println

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 Claret College of Isabela
Senior High School
P.O. Box 8692 Roxas Avenue, Isabela City, Basilan Province, 7300 Philippines
Tel. No. (062) 200 - 7697 / 200 – 7009 Telefax: (062) 200 - 3865

Based on our first simple Java program example, our main method contains the following line:

System.out.println(“Java is essential to the Web”);

System.out.println is a programming code that gives instructions to the computer to print something
out. Let us discuss every part of it. System refers to the computer and when it becomes System.out it
pertains to the monitor, which is the output device of the computer system. The next word, println (read
as “print line”) is a built-in Java method that is in control of printing computer messages. Overall, the
line of code is what it refers to as println method call. You simply call a method when you want to
execute it. Please
remember that the first letter of a method call is always in uppercase and the rest will be in lowercase.

The text enclosed in double quotation marks inside the parentheses is the message to be printed out to
the screen. These double quotes are in charge of grouping the messages together. At the end of the line
is a semi-colon that signifies the end of the method call or programming statement (it is like period in
the normal English language). All programming statements to be executed in Java end with a semicolon.

This chapter gave you a guide on how to start encoding using the Java programming language. You also
have a better picture of what are the different parts of a simple program. In the next chapter, you will
take programming to a higher level by incorporating what you call a user input.

NAME:___________________________________________DATE: _______________
COURSE AND YEAR: ______________________________OUTPUT NO: 5

Extend and Elaborate

1. What is the importance of java?

Learning/Activity Sheet
(APPLY PROGRAMMING SKILL IN JAVA- SARDUAL)
 Claret College of Isabela
Senior High School
P.O. Box 8692 Roxas Avenue, Isabela City, Basilan Province, 7300 Philippines
Tel. No. (062) 200 - 7697 / 200 – 7009 Telefax: (062) 200 - 3865
____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

2. What is Object?

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

3. What is object-oriented programming?

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

EVALUATE:

CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

WHY JAVA PROGRAMMING IS REALLY NEEDED IN TESDA?

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

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