Thread: Process to do better in Java prgramming

Hello shawon,

Welcome to the Java Programming Forums.

Java is very complex. Its going to take dedication and lots of reading/practise to learn.

The best place to start is at the Sun Java Tutorials. Its exactly where I started..

The Java™ Tutorials

Read all about the basics. Try to write your first "hello world" program and post back here when you get stuck.

Enjoy.

The static keyword denotes that a member variable, or method, can be accessed without requiring an instantiation of the class to which it belongs.
In simple terms, it means that you can call a method, even if you've never created the object to which it belongs! Every time you run a stand-alone application (which requires a static main method), the virtual machine can call the main method without creating a new application object. Of course, unless the application's methods are all static, you will need to create an instance of it at some point.
With regard to member variables, it means that they can be read from, and written to, without creating an object. You may have noticed that many classes create constants that can be read, without creating an object.

static final int VERSION = 2;

Static member variables are shared by all instances of the class to which they belong. When writing classes, this can be a handy feature. Consider the following example, where a counter is used to track how many myObject instantiations have taken place.

public class myObject
{
	static int objectCount = 0;
 
	public myObject()
	{
		objectCount++;
	}
 
	public String toString()
	{
		return new String ("There are " + objectCount + " objects");
	}
}

As each new myObject is created, the counter increments. If you were writing an Internet server application, you could track how many concurrent connections existed (remembering that you'd have to include in the destructor or at the end of the connection code a decrement to your count). When used correctly, static member variables and methods can be quite useful!

Being new to Java your probably finding this quite hard to understand. There is lots and lots of information out there. Id suggest looking through Google because you will find a lot of indepth explanations that will save us both time. Read as much as you can, try different examples until you truely understand what static means.

It all comes together quite nicely once you start writing your own code..

There are some free SCJP ebooks on this site that will be really worth reading and will help you alot in your study.

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