CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE AND JAVA

BRIEF HISTORY ON THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN PROGRAMMING

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE
 set of rules
 words and symbols are used
 form valid program statements
 produces logically correct outputs

LEVELS OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

1. Machine language
2. Assembly languages
3. High-level languages
4. Very high-level languages
5. Natural languages

THINGS THEY CONSIDERED IN MAKING PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

 EASE OF USE VS POWER
o understandability of programmer VS produce result with least resources possible
 SAFETY VS EFFICIENCY
o discourages/prevent undesirable errors, ability to access only the memory location it is allowed to access VS
reliability, runtime speed and algorithm used.
 RIGIDITY VS EXTENSIBILITY
o finding ways to work within constraints VS minimal constraints allows faster , intuitive, effective and
simpler solutions to difficult problems. (ie. Android vs Apple)

EVOLUTION OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

 Assembly - used to produce highly efficient programs, but it is not easy to learn or use effectively
 BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) - was easy to learn, it wasn’t very powerful,
 and its lack of structure made its usefulness questionable for large programs
 FORTRAN (Formula Translation) - used to write fairly efficient programs for scientific applications,
 it was not very good for system code
 COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) - is a high-level programming language for business applications
 PASCAL - a small, efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured
 programming and data structuring

 C - structured programming
o Invented and first implemented by Dennis Ritchie in 1970s
o It was designed, implemented, and developed by real, working programmers
o The result was a powerful, efficient, structured language that was relatively easy to learn

**C is one of the world’s great programming languages, there is a limit to its ability to handle complexity. Once
the size of a program exceeds a certain point, it becomes so complex that it is difficult to grasp as a totality

**Object-oriented programming OOP is a software development methodology in which a program is

conceptualized as a group of objects that work together. OOP is a programming methodology that helps
organize complex programs through the use of inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism.

 C++ (C with Classes)

- Invented by Bjarne Stroustrup in 1979
- blended the high efficiency and stylistic elements of C with the
 object-oriented paradigm

**World Wide Web and the Internet would reach critical mass. This event would precipitate another
revolution in programming

 JAVA (formerly Oak)

- conceived by James Gosling, Patrick Naughton, Chris Warth, Ed Frank, and Mike
Sheridan at Sun Microsystems, Inc. in 1991
- the primary motivation was the need for a platform-independent (that is, architecture-neutral)
language that could be used to create software to be embedded in various consumer electronic
devices, such as microwave ovens and remote controls

HOW JAVA CHANGED THE INTERNET

 Applet - a special kind of Java program that is designed to be transmitted over the Internet and automatically
executed by a Java-compatible web browser
 Security- Java achieved this protection by confining an applet to the Java execution environment and not allowing it
access to other parts of the computer
 Portability- ability to run on virtually any computer connected to the Internet which is attained via bytecode and
JVM.

JAVA BUZZWORDS
 Simple - easy for the programmers to learn and use effectively.
 Secure -
 Portable -
 Object-oriented - object model in Java is simple and easy to extend, while primitive types, such as integers, are kept
as high-performance non objects.
 Robust - virtually eliminates memory management mistakes and mishandled exceptional conditions problems by
automatic garbage collection and exception handling features.
 Multithreaded - supports multithreaded programming, which allows you to write programs that do many things
simultaneously.
 Architecture-neutral - “Write Once, Run Anywhere, any time, forever.”
 Interpreted and High Performance - Java bytecode was carefully designed so that it would be easy to translate
directly into native machine code for very high performance by using a just-in-time compiler.
 Distributed - designed for the distributed environment of the Internet because it handles TCP/IP protocols. Java also
supports Remote Method Invocation (RMI). This feature enables a program to invoke methods across a network.
 Dynamic - Java programs carry with them substantial amounts of run-time type information that is used to verify
and resolve accesses to objects at run time. This makes it possible to dynamically link code in a safe and expedient
manner.

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
1. Write a program in a specific PL.
2. Translate into a form the computer can execute
3. Investigating and fixing any errors

PROGRAM EXECUTION
 each CPU has a particular machine language
 for a program to run it must be translated into a machine language
 COMPILER – a software tool that translates source code into a specific machine language.
 Source C file entered in the compiler
output is an Executable (.exe) file

THE JAVA TRANSLATION

 JAVA compiler translates source code into bytecode
 BYTECODE – a special representation that contains complete info of the operations that the computer is to
perform. It is contained in a .class file.
 JVM (JAVA VIRTUAL MACHINE) – an interpreter that translates bytecode into machine language and
theexecutes it.
 JVM and bytecode together makes JAVA portable & architecture-neutral.

Source code compiled into bytecode format and interpreted by different

JVMs.

SYNTAX AND SEMANTICS

1. SYNTAX – rules on how words and symbols can be put together to form valid statements
2. SEMANTICS – defines the meaning of statements.

TYPES OF ERRORS
1. COMPILE TIME ERRORS – syntax and basic errors
2. RUN-TIME ERRORS – occurs during program execution (ie. division by zero)
3. LOGICAL ERRORS – errors when the programs produces incorrect results

PROBLEM SOLVING
 Understand the problem
 Design a solution
 Consider alternatives and refine the solution
 Implement the solution
 Test the solution