Why Java?

Java is a relatively young programming language. It was initially designed by Sun Microsystems in 1991 as a language for embedding programs into electronic consumer devices, such as microwave ovens and home security systems. However, the tremendous popularity of the Internet  and the World Wide Web (WWW)  led Sun to recast Java as a language for embedding programs into Web-based applications.

Java has been designed with a number of interesting features:

• Java is a simple language, simpler than C and C++.
• Java is object-oriented . Object-oriented languages divide programs into separate modules, called objects, that encapsulate the program's various attributes and actions. Thus, Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and Object-Oriented Design (OOD) refer to a particular way of organizing programs, one which is rapidly emerging as the preferred approach for building complex software systems.
• Java is robust, meaning that errors in Java programs don't cause system crashes as often as errors in other programming languages.
• Java is platform independent, which means that a Java program can be run without changes on different kinds of computers.
• Java is a distributed  language, which means that its programs can be designed to run on computer networks.
• Java is a secure language. It contains features that protect against untrusted code -- code that might introduce a virus or corrupt your system in some way.

Despite this list of attractive features, perhaps the best reason for choosing Java as an introductory programming language is its potential for bringing fun and excitement into learning how to program. In what other language can a beginning programmer write a computer game or a graphically based application that can be distributed on a Web page to just about any computer in the world?

For example, one of the projects we will work on throughout the text is the CyberPet program. CyberPet starts out as a very simple simulation of a pet that responds to commands like ``eat'' and ``sleep.'' As we learn more sophisticated programming techniques we gradually build more complexity into the simulation. For example, we learn how to add graphical images to the program in Chapter 4. In Chapter 6 we learn how to animate the CyberPet's eating behavior. In Chapter 8 we add randomness to the CyberPet's behavior so that it disobeys our commands from time to time. Finally in Chapter 15 we learn how to introduce multiple CyberPets of different kinds that behave in a completely autonomous fashion.

<a href="http://troy.trincoll.edu/ cpsc115/pet/">Click here to play with CyberPet.</a>