It was recognized long ago that programming is best accomplished by working with smaller sections of code that are connected in very specific and formal ways. Programs of any significant size should be broken down into smaller pieces. Classes can be used to create objects that will solve those smaller pieces. We determine what behaviors these objects will perform. These behaviors of the objects are called methods.

The key topics for this lesson are:

1. Writing Methods in Java
2. Parameters and Arguments
3. Returning Values
4. The Signature of a Method
5. Lifetime, Initialization, and Scope of Variables
6. Getters and Setters