INTRODUCTION TO JAVA

“Java refers to a number of computer software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems (the Java™ technology) that together provide a system for developing and deploying cross-platform applications. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms spanning from embedded devices and mobile phones on the low end to enterprise servers and super computers on the high end. Java is fairly ubiquitous in mobile phones, Web servers and enterprise applications, and somewhat less common in desktop applications, though users may have come across Java applets when browsing the Web.
Writing in the Java programming language is the primary way to produce code that will be deployed as Java bytecode, though there are compilers available for other languages such as JavaScript, Python and Ruby, and a native Java scripting language called Groovy. Java syntax borrows heavily from C and C++ but it eliminates certain low-level constructs such as pointers and has a very simple memory model where every object is allocated on the heap and all variables of object types are references. Memory management is handled through integrated automatic garbage collection performed by the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).”1
OOP – Object Oriented Programming
OOP is a particular style of programming which involves a particular way of designing solutions to particular problems. Most modern programming languages, including Java, support this paradigm. When speaking about OOP one has to mention:

 Inheritance
 Modularity
 Polymorphism
 Encapsulation (binding code and its data)

"However at this point it is too early to try to fully understand these concepts. This guide is divided into two major sections, the first section is an introduction to the language and illustrates various examples of code while the second part goes into more detail."

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28Sun%29