Overview: Our goal in this course is to learn in some depth the principles of programming and software development using the language Java. The emphasis will be both on structured and object oriented style. While Java is our main tool and thus necessarily we will devote a large amount of time mastering its syntax and techniques, our objective will be broader. In other words we will attempt to learn principles that go beyond Java per se and hopefully will be useful for other programming languages as well.

Text Book: Deitel & Deitel, "Java, How to Program", 3^rd edition, Prentice Hall, 1999.

Prerequisites: No previous knowledge of programming languages is required. However those of you that are familiar with some other language, particularly C, will have an easier ride in the first few weeks. You need to have access to a personal computer (Windows, Mac or Unix will all work.) You need to be able to download and install software on this machine. You also need to have access to internet.

Home works, exams and grading: We will have one mid term exam (25% of your grade) and one final exam (30% of your grade). The remaining 45% is determined by the programming projects. Please note: Programming projects are the heart and soul of this course. Without doing them you will not be able to learn anything from this course. Therefore, I insist that you make your best efforts to do them all. To enforce this we have the following rule:

No one will be able to pass this course if they fail to hand in more than one homework assignment. Furthermore no one will pass the course if their cumulative point from programming assignments is less than 60% of total possible points. In other words if the maximum possible points from programs is, say 400, then you can not pass the course if your score from these programs is less than 240. These rules stand regardless of your score from the exams.

Tentative List of Topics

Topic 1

Introduction to Computers: (1.5 lectures)

Computer architecture: CPU, memory, disks, peripherals, networks

Programming languages: machine/assembly language, high level language, compilers, Java virtual Machine

Installing Java and related software

Files, folders, editors

.java and .class files, write and execute a java program

Read: Chapter 1

Topic 2

Anatomy of Java Programs: (1.5 lectures)

Classes

Data and fields

Methods

Constructors

Detailed examination of simple java program

Read: sections 2.1-2.3

Topic 3

Memory Concepts, variables, simple types, expressions, assignments: (1.5 lectures)

Notion of memory, variables and declarations

Numerical types/operations/expressions

Character types/ operations/expressions

Boolean types/expressions/operations + truth tables

Introduction to Strings

Final variables

Read: sections 2.4-2.7

Topic 4

Control structures: (3.5 lectures)

if and if/else statements

while and do/while statements

for statement

switch statement

Code blocks and scope of variables

Introduction to the concept of algorithm, flowchart notation

Read: chapters 4 and 5

Examples: (generate truth tables? Read numbers online and calculate statistical values, calculate mathematical functions such as exp(), sin(), cos() etc.)

Topic 5

Arrays: (2 lectures)

Contiguous blocks of data and their use

Declaration and initialization of arrays

Looping over arrays

Multi-dimensional arrays

Read: Chapter 7

Examples: (binary and sequential search, Insertion sort? Matrices? Rotation? Flip? Representation of graphs/networks?)

Topic 6

Methods in depth: (2 lectures)

Definition, parameters, return values, void type

Notion of call by value, final parameters

Invoking methods others have written, invoking Java API, Math class

Notion of modular design

Method overloading and use

Recursion

Read: Chapter 6 (skip section 6.12)

Examples: (Finding kth largest element, Quicksort, binary search recursive version?)

Topic 7

Input and output: (1 lecture)

Read: To be determined

Mid Term exam

Topic 8

Classes and objects: (2.5 lectures)

Declaration of classes

Fields, methods, scope

Constructors, and initialization: new

The encapsulation pronciple in object oriented programming

Packages and their use

Private, package and public protection of data and methods

declaring objects of a class

UML notation for classes the Argo/UML package

static/class members and methods and their use

Examples: (Employee, linked list, serial numbers)

Read: Chapter 8

Topic 9

Inheritance and polymorphism: (2.5 lectures)

Subclassing and inheritance

The Object class

Protected members and methods

Overriding methods, final methods

Polymorphism and dynamic method binding

Inner classes

Final classes

Type casting

Declaring objects like: SupClass x=new Subclass();

UML diagrams and inheritance

Code reuse

Read: Sections 9.1-9.7, 9.9-9.14 and handout

Examples (polymorphism via simple employee class, Detailed analysis of sorting program independent of type)

Topic 10

Abstraction: (2 lectures)

Abstract classes and methods

Interfaces

Multiple inheritance via interfaces

Marker interfaces and their use

instanceOf method

Wrapper classes

Read: sections 9.14-9.22

Examples (Queue and stack declaration using interfaces)

Topic 11 (Canceled)

Exception handling: (1 lecture)

Read: To be determined later

Topic 12

Strings: (1 lecture)

toString method and concataneation

substring, slicing and other String operations

StringBuffer class versus String (Canceled)

Creating immutable objects (Canceled)

Read: Chapter 10

Topic 13

Graphics and GUI: (4 lectures)

Graphics class and paint()/repaint() methods

Color and font manipulations

Various drawings: drawLine, drawString, etc.

Graphics2D API

Applets

Swing package and use of Jbuilder software to build GUIs:

Jlabel

Model/view/controller framework and UI Delegate

Events and event handling

Organization of Swing classes

Jbutton and action events

Jtextfield/JPassword and related events

JcomboBox, Jlist,

Mouse events

Adapters

Layout management

Panels and Panes

Read: Chapter 11, 3, 12, (possibly parts of chapter 13)

Examples: (Dice example, GUI shop? GUI for sort? Animate sort? Histogram?)

Topic 14 (Canceled)

Data structures and Java Collections framework: (2 lectures)

Notion of data structures

Review of Lists, adding and deleting from lists

Stacks and queues, push and pop, add and take

Binary search trees and tree searching

Brief discussion of hash table and notion of hashing

Java Collections framework

Collection, Set and Map interfaces

Abstract and concrete classes

Iterators

Algorithms in Collection class

Read: Chapter 22, chapter 24 and sections 23.8-23.9

12/20/00

Final exam