Absolute Beginner's Guide to Programming, Third Edition

Summary

The goal of this chapter was to introduce you to the Java language. Java activates Web pages by sending small active applications called applets along with Web pages. Part of that introduction has to be a language overview. Unlike more traditional programming languages such as FORTRAN and Visual Basic, a Java program is almost always part of something else, most notably a Web page. The program travels with the Web page to the user's machine and executes using the user's own computing power.

You may not understand much of the Java language yet, but you can understand a simple Java program better now that you've finished this chapter. An applet is actually a subclass, or an inherited version of a predefined class that comes with the Java ...