Is this course for you?

- This course is designed for software developers who want to program in Java. Java is used in a lot of different environments to create a lot of different kinds of applications. You can use Java to build apps for mobile devices running on Android and BlackBerry. You can build web applications using Java Enterprise Edition and its servlets and JSP or JavaServer Pages architectures. You can program micro devices including cell phone SIM cards.

And you can create many other types of applications. But Java is not a universal programming language and it's not used everywhere. Here are some things that Java is not. Java and JavaScript are not the same language, for example. JavaScript is an interpreted language that's used in web browsers and other dynamic environments. JavaScript and Java share the word Java, but they're not the same language at all. And if your goal, for example, is to build dynamic front-end webpages, you want JavaScript and not Java.

Java is also not the language of choice to build iOS apps, that is, apps for use on the iPhone and iPad platforms. The popular languages there are Objective-C and the newer Swift. And you also don't use Java to build Windows Phone apps. For Windows Phone, you can use either Visual Basic or the more popular C Sharp. Java is also not the easiest language in the world. It is an object-oriented language and to master it, you need to understand object-oriented concepts.

It's not the most difficult language in the world, either. One of its virtues is its consistency. Once you learn the rules of Java, how to think in Java, you can apply those rules across the board, learning new skills and picking up new libraries and APIs as you need them. As I mentioned, this course is designed for everybody who wants to develop software with Java, but because Java is an object-oriented language, I will be using a certain basic programming vocabulary.

If you're not sure whether you're ready for this course, here are a few questions you can ask yourself to find out. These questions test your understanding of some basic programming terms. What is a statement in a programming language? And what is a variable? What is a function or a method? And what is a condition? If you feel like you can confidently answer these questions, then you're ready for this course. But if you'd like a little bit more information about programming fundamentals, you can find that information in some lynda.com courses.

Foundations of Programming: Fundamentals will answer those basic questions. And to learn the terminology of object-oriented programming, you can look at Foundations of Programming: Object-Oriented Design. You can either start with these courses and then go to this course, or you can jump right into this course and then if you encounter terminology that you're not familiar with, you can jump to these courses. Either of these strategies should work as you start on your journey of learning Java.