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About the Book

The modules in this book will cover coding in Java using the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment. Other Integrated Development Environments exist such as NetBeans and IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition^{see note below}. Whilst the step-by-step instructions and screenshots in the book are based around the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment they can still be used by those preferring a different IDE. All examples run in any IDE.

The first module in the book is an introduction to programming, covering many of the concepts needed when developing Java code. In the next modules a wide range of programming concepts are covered including data types, selection, iteration, arrays, methods, classes and objects, serialisation, file handling and string handling. This is more than enough to allow the development of applications that emulate commercial application code.

All examples in the modules are fully commented to ensure you can understand the code and to enhance your knowledge of the Java programming language. Reading the comments in the code examples will enhance your understanding of Java and will help explain why the code does something or what the code is doing.

After you have completed the core modules, you will look at common programming routines and use Java to code them. The routines include linear search, binary search, bubble sort and insertion sort.

The book then completes with Labs (exercises) for the majority of the programming modules you have covered. Each Lab exercise is supported with a working solution, just in case you have difficulty completing any of the labs.

The book is ideal for beginners, those refreshing their Java skills or those moving from another programming language. It is ideally suited for those students studying programming at high school or at university and for teachers who deliver programming lessons. The book offers detailed explanations and the code has excellent comments to support learning. By using clean code with proper naming the code is intuitive to read and understand.

Reading the book is one thing but actually coding the examples using the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment is the most important thing, if you wish to get the best understanding of the Java language. Hands on experience whilst reading this book is the key to success.

Think about learning as a dot. When you start learning Java the dot is small but as you progress with the modules, the dot will increase in size. It is not how big the dot becomes that is important but the simply that the dot is increasing. No matter how 'expert' someone is at Java there will always be an opportunity to learn more and as such the dot continually gets larger.

Note

Another version of this book is also available with step by step instructions and screenshots for the IntelliJ IDEA Integrated Development Environment. The code and examples in both books are the same.

The book is part of the 'Build your programming muscle series' by the same author which currently includes the books:

PROGRAM PRACTICALLY WITH - JAVA (Eclipse IDE Version)

PROGRAM PRACTICALLY WITH - JAVA (IntelliJ IDEA IDE Version)

PROGRAM PRACTICALLY WITH - JAVA (Scenarios and Solutions)

About the Author

GERRY BYRNE

Gerry currently works as a Senior Technical Trainer for a Forbes 100 company based in the US. Gerry's role includes upskilling and reskilling software engineers who develop business critical software applications, enhancing the programming skills of 'returners' to the workforce and introducing new graduates to the application of software development in the software industry.

His subject expertise has been developed over a forty two year career as a teacher, a lecturer and for the last 11 years, as a technical trainer in a corporate technology environment. Having delivered a range of courses on many varied computer languages and frameworks Gerry is well placed to understand how to teach skills and knowledge to a range of learners. His course delivery has included skilling people in the use of legacy technologies such as COBOL and JCL and more 'modern' technologies such as Java, C#, JavaScript, CSS, Bootstrap, HTML, React, Node.js, Spring Boot, Python, Android and Test Driven Development.

Gerry, through his long career, has mastered teaching difficult concepts in a simple way that makes learning accessible and enjoyable. The textbooks and notes he produces follow the simple philosophy of keeping it simple, while making the instructions detailed. As an educator Gerry has taught other educators how to teach programming to their students and has provided materials that can be used by the teacher or pupil. Gerry is passionate about software development and believes we can all learn to write code if we are patient and understand the basic coding concepts.

Gerry's learning, development and teaching are driven by the current hot topics within the technology industry and for Gerry they are presently based around the:

• back-end technologies of the Java programming language and incorporating the Spring Framework to create API's
• front-end technologies of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and React because of the high demand for Full Stack Developers and the importance of being an 'all round' developer