The notion of Java programming basics has many interpretations. Some tutorials assume the basics to be the same for any object-oriented language. Others discuss syntax and basic language elements and grammar rules. Yet others reduce the basics to the value types, operators, statements, and expressions that allow computations.
Our view of Java basics consists of some elements from each of the earlier approaches. The only criteria for the selection we used were practicality and a gradual increase of complexity. We will start with simple definitions in this section, and then dive deeper into them in the subsequent sections.
