We will describe the basic structure of simple Java programs in this chapter. We
will also describe the steps you follow to run Java programs. We expect you to
actually run these sample programs to verify that your computer (either your own or
the one at the school’s computer center) is set up properly to run the sample
programs presented in the book. It is important to verify this now. Otherwise, if you
encounter a problem later, you won’t be able to determine whether the problem is
the result of a bad program or a bad setup. Please check Appendix Afor information
on how to run the textbook’s sample programs.
We will develop a sample application program in Section 2.4 following the
design, coding, and testing phases of the software life cycle. We stress here again
that our objective in this book is to teach object-oriented programming and how to
apply object-oriented thinking in program development. The Java language is
merely a means to implement a design into an executable program. We chose Java
for this book because Java is a much easier language than other object-oriented programming
languages to use to translate a design into an actual code. Beginning students
often get lost in the language details and forget the main objective of learning
the development process, but the use of Java should minimize this problem.
