Discover the Ballerina programming language for next-generation microservices and cloud-native application development. This book shows you that Ballerina is a cutting-edge programming language which incorporates many of the latest technological advancements in programming language theory. You'll learn variables and types, modules and functions, flow control, error handling, concurrency, I/O, cloud/network programming, persistence and data access, security and more. Additionally, Beginning Ballerina Programming introduces many foundation computer science topics along the way and doesn't assume much prior knowledge. For example, when introducing transport-level security, you will get a brief introduction to public-key cryptography, how it is different from private-key cryptography, and why it is needed. This provides an added bonus for you to learn something new and general in computer science. After reading and using this book, you'll be proficient with Ballerina and cloud-first programming and be able to apply these concepts and techniques to your next cloud application developments. What You'll Learn * Start programming with Ballerina * Gain the basics of network communication and programming * Obtain a solid understanding of services/API development * Effective use of concurrency in programming * Learn the basics of information security and its applications * Persistent data storage and access Who This Book Is For Absolute beginners in computer programming: No prior experience with computer programming is expected. This can also be a reference book for experienced developers in other languages, who want to learn a modern programming language.