Note for Fall 2008

The Fall 2008 text will be Lewis and Loftus Java Software Solutions 5th or 6th edition. The text is optional, and either edition is fine. Links to the text:

• 6th edition
• 5th edition

Local Stuff:

• A brief introduction to space and time complexity is here.
• A test and some quizzes from Spring 2008. These may or may not resemble those given in any other semester, including this semester.
• Foreach, Arrays, and Enums: Discussion and Working Code
• The Iterator and Iterable interfaces. What's the difference? How are they related?
• Using Scanner to process input.
• WhereAmI.java is a quick little ditty to display the current working directory. It illustrates use of a static method from the System class, provides a static method that can be called from elsewhere to get a process's current working directory, or can be run from a GUI IDE to determine the current working directory in that environment. This is the intended primary use: when writing Java programs that perform file I/O, knowing the current working directory often simplifies matters. Often, the IDE hides this from the student, making this tool useful.

External Links:

• Introduction to Programming Using Java by David J. Eck. This is not quite up-to-date (e.g., no mention of Iterable), but very good nonetheless and much closer to current than is How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (below).
• First Cup of Java: Hints on getting started with Java.
• How to Think Like a Computer Scientist, Java Version: This is a text that does a good job of discussing Java language fundamentals. However, it is rather dated, not covering any Java 1.5 or later features.
• Sun's Java Home Page: This is a good starting point for finding everything Sun's placed online regarding Java.
• Sun's Java API Specification: This is the best reference for the Java class libraries.
• JLayer 1.0: This is a freely-distributable mp3 player library for Java.