Chapter 2 Language Fundamentals Java is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language, therefore an understanding of OOP is of utmost importance. Chapter 4, "Objects and Classes" is the first lesson of OOP in this book. However, before you explore many features and techniques in OOP, make sure you study the prerequisite: basic programming concepts discussed in this chapter. The topics covered are as follows. Encoding Sets. Java supports the Unicode character encoding set and program element names are not restricted to ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters. Text can be written using characters in practically any human language in use today. Primitives. Java is an OOP language and Java programs deal with objects most of the time. However, there are also non-object elements that represent numbers and simple values such as true and false. These simple non-object programming elements are called primitives. Variables. Variables are place holders whose contents can change. There are many types of variables. Constants. Place holders whose values cannot be changed. Literals. Literals are representations of data values that are understood by the Java compiler. Primitive conversion. Changing the type of a primitive to another type. Operators. Operators are notations indicating that certain operations are to be performed. Note If you have programmed with C or C++, two popular languages at the time Java was invented, you should feel at home learning Java