Data Types
The meaning of data type in programming To properly define what is a data type in computer science, we must understand first what "type" means. After perusing the web for a definition, I found this: -A category of people or things having common characteristics . In computer science, in this case specifically for programming in Java, a data type is simply a categorization of things (objects) that have common characteristics. For illustration purposes, let us consider something we are all familiarized with: money. Since I am American, I am more familiarized with American currency . Therefore, I will use that for my first example. American currency comes in bills or banknotes (generally referred as paper currency) and in metallic form called coins. Using the definition of data types, the generic data type known as "American Currency" can be further classified as "Paper Currency" and "Coin". Why do this? Because, although all