Java 6 Programming: A Crash Course
Dates:
May 3-7, 2010
Time:
TBD
Instructor:
Marty Hall
Location:
Dorsey Center, Elkridge, MD
Tuition:
The 5-day course costs $2395 per student and includes an extensive course notebook, a commercial Java textbook, exercises,
exercise solutions, breakfast, snacks, and lunch.
How to Register:
Submit Registration Form PDF version 
(286 KB)
by fax at 410.579.8049, email a scanned copy, or
by USPS mail. If you register for more than one non-credit course during the Spring 2010 semester or send more than one student from the same organization,
enter "Multiple" as the discount code on the registration form PDF version (286 KB)
and subtract $200 per person per course. Bonus: Register at least two weeks in advance and receive a $50 gift certificate from amazon.com.
Course Description
Java is the world's most popular and widely-applied programming language, but it is large, complex, and sometimes difficult to get started with. This course gives a practical, hands-on introduction to programming with Java 6, the latest version of the language. It provides thorough coverage of the foundational Java topics: basic syntax, object-oriented programming, and core data structures; it also gives a fast-moving survey of some of the most important libraries: graphical user interfaces, multithreaded applications, network programming, serialization, and XML parsing. In each section, it gives details on the most important topics, surveys more advanced or lesser-used topics, stresses best practices, and gives plenty of working examples.
Prerequisites
The course consists of an approximately equal mixture of lecture and hands-on lab time. The course assumes that all students are experienced programmers in some language: this is not a course for first-time programmers. Experience with C, C++, C#, or Objective-C is particularly helpful.
Syllabus
Introduction to and Overview of Java- Truths / Myths About Java
- Java is Web-Enabled?
- Java is Safe?
- Java is Cross-Platform?
- Java is Simple?
- Java is Powerful?
- Common Java Protocols and Packages
- Getting Started
- Applications
- Applets
- Creating, compiling, and executing simple Java programs
- Accessing arrays
- Looping
- Indenting code
- Using if statements
- Comparing strings
- Building arrays
- One-step process
- Two-step process
- Multidimensional Arrays
- Performing basic mathematical operations
- Reading command-line input
- Similarities and differences between Java and C++
- Object-oriented nomenclature and conventions
- Instance variables (data members, fields)
- Methods (member functions)
- Constructors
- Destructors (not!)
- Overloading
- Designing "real" classes
- Inheritance
- Quick intro to advanced topics
- Abstract Classes
- Interfaces
- Understanding Ploymorphism
- Setting CLASSPATH and using packages
- Visibility Modifiers
- Creating on-line documentation using JavaDoc
- Applet restrictions
- Basic applet and HTML template
- The applet life-cycle
- Customizing applets through HTML parameters
- Methods available for graphical operations
- Using try/catch blocks
- Loading and drawing images
- Controlling image loading
- Mutating vs. Returning Results
- Data Structures
- ArrayList
- LinkedList
- HashMap
- Generics
- printf
- varargs
- String vs. StringBuilder
- Applet restrictions
- Basic applet and HTML template
- The applet life-cycle
- Customizing applets through HTML parameters
- Methods available for graphical operations
- Using try/catch blocks
- Loading and drawing images
- Basic AWT windows
- Creating Lightweight Components
- Closing Frames
- Using Object serialization to save components to disk
- Basic AWT user interface controls
- Processing events in GUI controls
- How layout managers simplify interface design
- Standard layout managers
- Positioning components manually
- Strategies for using layout managers effectively
- Drawing Shapes
- Paint Styles
- Transparency
- Using Local Fonts
- Stroke Styles
- Coordination Transformations
- Requesting Drawing Accuracy
- New Features
- Basic approach
- Starting points
- JApplet, JFrame
- Swing equivalent of AWT components
- JLabel, JButton, JPanel, JSlider
- New Swing components
- JColorChooser, JInternalFrame, JOptionPane, JToolBar, JEditorPane
- Other simple components
- JCheckBox, JRadioButton, JTextField, JTextArea, JFileChooser
- Building a simple static JList
- Adding and removing entries from a JList at runtime
- Making a custom data model
- Making a custom cell renderer
- Why threads?
- Basic approach
- Make a task list with Executors.newFixedThreadPool
- Add tasks to the list with tasks.execute
- Two variations on the theme
- Separate instances of Runnable
- One instance of Runnable
- Race conditions and synchronization
- Helpful Thread-related methods
- Advanced topics in concurrency
- Approaches for multithreaded graphics
- Redraw everything in paint
- Have routines other than paint draw directly on window
- Override update and have paint do incremental updating
- Double buffering
- Reducing flicker in animations
- Implementing double buffering
- Animating images
- Controlling timers
- Creating sockets
- Implementing a generic network client
- Parsing data
- StringTokenizer
- String.split and regular expressions
- Retrieving files from an HTTP server
- Retrieving Web documents by using the URL class
- Steps for creating a server
- A generic network server
- Accepting connections from browsers
- Creating an HTTP server
- Adding multithreading to an HTTP server
- Idea
- Requirements
- Steps for sending data
- Steps for receiving data
- Options for input files
- XML overview
- Comparing XML with HTML
- Parsing an XML document
- Creating a DocumentFactory and Document
- Extracting data from parsed document
- Known structure, attribute values only
- Known structure, attribute values and body content
- Unknown structure