Content

Java Lesson 1 • What is JAVA?

• Why Use JAVA?
Java From Scratch • Java Getting Started
• Java Install
• Setup for Windows
• Java Quickstart
• Java Syntax
• The main Method
• The println() Method
• Example explained
• Exercise
What is Java?
It is used for:
Java is a popular programming language,
• Mobile applications (specially Android apps)
created in 1995.
• Desktop applications
It is owned by Oracle, and more than 3 • Web applications
billion devices run Java. • Web servers and application servers
• Games
• Database connection
• And much, much more!
Why Use Java?
• Java works on different platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Raspberry Pi, etc.)
• It is one of the most popular programming language in the world
• It has a large demand in the current job market
• It is easy to learn and simple to use
• It is open-source and free
• It is secure, fast and powerful
• It has a huge community support (tens of millions of developers)
• Java is an object oriented language which gives a clear structure to programs and allows code to be
reused, lowering development costs
• As Java is close to C++ and C#, it makes it easy for programmers to switch to Java or vice versa

Java Getting Started

Java Install
Some PCs might have Java already installed.
To check if you have Java installed on a Windows PC, search in the start bar for Java or type the
following in Command Prompt (cmd.exe):

C:\Users\Your Name>java -version

If Java is installed, you will see something like this (depending on version):
java version "11.0.1" 2018-10-16 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9 (build 11.0.1+13-LTS, mixed mode)

If you do not have Java installed on your computer, you can download it for free at oracle.com.

Note: In this tutorial, we will write Java code in a text editor. However, it is possible to write Java in
an Integrated Development Environment, such as IntelliJ IDEA, Netbeans or Eclipse, which are
particularly useful when managing larger collections of Java files.
1
Setup for Windows
To install Java on Windows: -
1. Go to "System Properties" (Can be found on Control Panel > System and Security > System >
Advanced System Settings)

2. Click on the "Environment variables" button under 3. Then, select the "Path" variable in System
the "Advanced" tab variables and click on the "Edit" button

4. Click on the "New" button and add the path where 5. At last, open Command Prompt (cmd.exe)
Java is installed, followed by \bin. By default, Java and type java -version to see if Java is
is installed in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-11.0.1 running on your machine
(If nothing else was specified when you installed it).
Write the following in the command line (cmd.exe):
In that case, You will have to add a new path
C:\Users\Your Name>java -version
with: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-11.0.1\bin
Then, click "OK", and save the settings If Java was successfully installed, you will see
something like this (depending on version):
java version "11.0.1" 2018-10-16 LTS
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.9 (build
11.0.1+13-LTS)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.9
(build 11.0.1+13-LTS, mixed mode)

2
Java Quickstart
In Java, every application begins with a class name, and that class must match the filename.
Let's create our first Java file, called Main.java, which can be done in any text editor (like Notepad).
The file should contain a "Hello World" message, which is written with the following code:
Main.java
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World");
}
}
Don't worry if you don't understand the code above - we will discuss it in detail in later chapters. For
now, focus on how to run the code above.

Save the code in Notepad as "Main.java". Open Command Prompt (cmd.exe), navigate to the directory
where you saved your file, and type "javac Main.java":
C:\Users\Your Name>javac Main.java

This will compile your code. If there are no errors in the code, the command prompt will take you to the
next line. Now, type "java Main" to run the file:
C:\Users\Your Name>java Main

The output should read:

Hello World

Congratulations! You have written and executed your first Java program.

Java Syntax
In the previous chapter, we created a Java file called Main.java, and we used the following code to
print "Hello World" to the screen:

Main.java Example explained

Every line of code that runs in Java must be inside a class. In our example, we named the class Main. A
class should always start with an uppercase first letter.

Note: Java is case-sensitive: "MyClass" and "myclass" has different meaning.

The name of the java file must match the class name. When saving the file, save it using the class name
and add ".java" to the end of the filename. To run the example above on your computer, make sure that
Java is properly installed: Go to the Get Started Chapter for how to install Java. The output should be:

Hello World

3
The main Method
The main() method is required and you will see it in every Java program:

public static void main(String[] args)

Any code inside the main() method will be executed. Don't worry about the keywords before and after
main. You will get to know them bit by bit while reading this tutorial.

For now, just remember that every Java program has a class name which must match the filename,
and that every program must contain the main() method.

System.out.println()

Inside the main() method, we can use the println() method to print a line of text to the screen:

public static void main(String[] args) {

System.out.println("Hello World");
}

Note: The curly braces {} marks the beginning and the end of a block of code.

System is a built-in Java class that contains useful members, such as out, which is short for "output".
The println() method, short for "print line", is used to print a value to the screen (or a file).

Don't worry too much about System, out and println(). Just know that you need them together to
print stuff to the screen.

You should also note that each code statement must end with a semicolon (;).

Exercise:
Insert the missing part of the code below to output "Hello World".

public class MyClass {

public static void main(String[] args) {

. . ("Hello World");