A Little
Terminology
Keep in mind that I am assuming
that you know nothing about programming. Here are
several vocabulary terms that will make things
understandable:
- Computer program - A computer program is a
set of instructions that tell a computer exactly what
to do. The instructions might tell the computer to add
up a set of numbers, or compare two numbers and make a
decision based on the result, or whatever. But a
computer program is simply a set of instructions for
the computer, like a recipe is a set of instructions
for a cook or musical notes are a set of instructions
for a musician. The computer follows your instructions
exactly and in the process does something useful --
like balancing a checkbook or displaying a game on the
screen or implementing a word processor.
- Programming language - In order for a
computer to recognize the instructions you give it,
those instructions need to be written in a language
the computer understands -- a programming language.
There are many computer programming languages --
Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Perl --
just like there are many spoken languages. They all
express approximately the same concepts in different
ways.
- Compiler - A compiler translates a computer
program written in a human-readable computer language
(like Java) into a form that a computer can
execute. You have probably seen EXE files on
your computer. These EXE files are the output of
compilers. They contain executables --
machine-readable programs translated from
human-readable programs.
In order for you to start writing computer programs
in a programming language called Java, you need a
compiler for the Java language. The next section guides
you through the process of downloading and installing a
compiler. Once you have a compiler, we can get started.
This process is going to take several hours, much of
that time being download time for several large files.
You are also going to need about 40 megabytes of free
disk space (make sure you have the space available
before you get started).