We organized the chapters in this book to be read in sequence. However, each chapter begins with a clear statement of what we assume you know before reading the chapter, so you can jump around a little bit, depending on your background and experience. You can use the book as a reference and jump in anywhere once you have the fundamentals.

Chapter 1 presents reasons why you should learn Java and describes the many similarities between COBOL and Java.

Chapter 2 explains what OO is, and what it is not. OO terms and concepts are described using several everyday examples.

Chapter 3 describes the overall structure and format of a Java program. Several small programs are developed to show you how to create objects and call methods.

Chapter 4 shows you how to define Java data items and use them in a program. Java data definition is somewhat different than COBOL and these differences are clearly explained and demonstrated in the program examples.

Chapter 5 introduces Java computation and, again, several small programs are written to illustrate the ideas and concepts present. You will see that some Java computation is nearly identical to COBOL.

Chapter 6 illustrates how to use the Java decision-making statements.