Java

[Garee]

So I just finished my first year of Computing Science focusing mainly on Python and I am enjoying the course thus far.

In latter years and starting next term we are learning Java and I would like to get a good grasp of it over the summer so I am experienced with it.

Just wondering how best to approach this and if anyone knows any great books that I should look into?

Thanks.

 

[BlackDragon]

Make sure you get a good grip on the concept of object oriented programming, as that is what Java is about.

There's some stuff hereunder the heading 'Trails covering the basics'.

A book I used while at uni was Thinking In Java by Bruce Eckel. A very very big book but has plenty of code examples and good explanations.

As you go, try and do some programming and get used to objected oriented programming (and not just Java).

 

[Slyman2k4]

Before we had our java module we did an Algorithms and Data Structures module. It covered searching and sorting methods, some other stuff I cant remember.

I think the book recommended for that was Java software solutions by Lewis & Loftus

The java book we were recommended was "Deitel & Deitel - Java, how to program" and the sun java tutorials BlackDragon linked.

You might also want to take a 'swing' at swing (haha)
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/components/index.html

For our two assignments we had to do:

A gui representation of a BinarySearchTree
Pacman

Other subjects we covered were BinaryTrees and Graphs. We did do a bit of hash tables near the end but our assignments focused around the other two. Multithreading etc aswell, notes were from that deitel book iirc.

 

[sniffy]

Objects First with Java. The guys that wrote it know how to teach. I should know, they lectured me It might be a bit slow but if you just work through it, you'll understand objects by the end of it.

I'd stay away from GUI stuff for a good while.