Java Basics

History
James Gosling was not satisfied with C++. There were several insufficiencies which hindered his plans. So, he created his own. Initially called Oak by James Gosling for the Green Project. However, since that name was already taken, it was later named Java.

Language Features
Platform Independent – can run on any environment
Garbage Collection – objects are automatically destroyed from memory
Object Oriented
Multithreaded – can perform several tasks at the same time
Dynamically Linked - classes are loaded as needed

OOP Concepts
If you've never used an object-oriented language before, you need to understand the underlying concepts before you begin writing code. You need to understand what an object is, what a class is, how objects and classes are related, and how objects communicate by using messages. The first few sections of this trail describe the concepts behind object-oriented programming. The last section shows how these concepts translate into code.