This course provides you with a foundation in basic programming concepts that are common to most high-level programming languages with an emphasis on structured programming.
you will start by learning what a computer program is and about the environment in which it does its job. As you progress through the course you will move from more general topics, such as how a computer stores numbers and text, to more specific topics, such as how to implement an algorithm for sorting data. Along the way you will have many opportunities to practice your new programming skills by writing computer programs in the Java programming language.
By the end of the course you will be ready to study more advanced topics in Java or to move on to another high-level programming language such as C or Visual Basic.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

1. Understand what a computer program is and how it works
2. Describe how a computer stores numbers and text
3. Use structured programming concepts
4. Use the Java 2 Software Development Kit to develop Java programs
5. Use Java's primitive data types
6. Use Java's arithmetic, increment and decrement, remainder, relational, and logical operators
7. Understand numeric promotion, truncation, conversion and casting, and operator precedence
8. Use control flow constructs in a Java program
9. Use class methods in a Java program
10. Use arrays in a Java program
11. Implement an algorithm for sorting data

In the next lesson, you will learn about prerequisites to this course.