1 Introduction.md

Chapter 1. Introduction

• “Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.”
• “For the most part, this book is not about performance. It is about writing programs that are clear, correct, usable, robust, flexible, and maintainable.”
• Terms
  • The language supports four kinds of types: interfaces (including annotations), classes (including enums), arrays, and primitives. The first three are known as reference types. Class instances and arrays are objects; primitive values are not.
  • A class’s members consist of its fields, methods, member classes, and member interfaces.
  • A method’s signature consists of its name and the types of its formal parameters; the signature does not include the method’s return type.
  • Classes, interfaces, constructors, members, and serialized forms are collectively known as API elements. An exported API consists of the API elements that are accessible outside of the package that defines the API.