1: Course introduction

Java 101 is a basic programming course in Java. The focus is not so much on going over every feature Java offers, but more on how a basic piece of software is built. We happen to use Java as the language, but after finishing this course, you’ll find it easy to apply your learnings to other programming languages just as easily.

Programming language vs Natural language

When building a program, we are writing instructions that tell a computer what to do. We’ve all used computer programs before. But what if we want to build our own program?

To build our own program, we have to use a programming language and write detailed instructions that tell the computer what to do.

A programming language is exactly what the name suggests: a language. It’s a language built to tell a computer what to do. And because computers are less intelligent than human beings, the language is more limited than a natural language (e.g., English, French, Spanish, etc.). In that sense, you can look at this course as a language course to some extent.

Course structure

First, we’ll go over installing the tools we need for building and running a Java application. After that, each lesson comes in three parts:

Part a: Covers a new language construct — what it is and how it can be used. Part b: Includes practice problems, hints on how to solve them, and links to the solutions.

At the end, you will find the course project where we build the 2048 game in Java.