Course Summary
Java is the world's most popular and widely-applied programming language, but it is large, complex, and sometimes difficult to get started with. Java 6 Programming crash course gives a practical, hands-on introduction to programming with Java 6, the latest version of the language. It provides thorough coverage of the 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.
This course is developed and taught by Marty Hall, an experienced developer, award-winning instructor, popular conference speaker (5 times at JavaOne), and author of several bestselling Java books.
Duration
5 days.
Audience
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.
Additional Notes
About Marty Hall - Your Instructor
Marty Hall is the author of six popular Java EE books, including Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages, the all-time worldwide bestselling servlet/JSP book, published in Bulgarian, Chinese Simplified Script (Mainland China), Chinese Traditional Script (Taiwan), Czech, Greek, English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Marty is president of coreservlets.com, a training and consulting company focusing on server-side Java technology and Rich Internet Apps with Ajax.
In addition to long Java development and consulting experience, Marty has an extensive background in teaching and training, having given training courses on J2EE and Ajax topics in Japan, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and dozens of US venues.
A popular and entertaining speaker, Marty has also spoken at conferences and user groups around the world, including Comdex, the Web 2.0 Expo, and five times at JavaOne. Marty is also adjunct faculty in the Johns Hopkins University part-time graduate program in Computer Science, where he directs the Java and Web-related concentration areas.
Outline
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
Basic Java Syntax
- 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
Basic Object-Oriented Programming in Java
- Similarities and differences between Java and C++
- Object-oriented nomenclature and conventions
- Instance variables (data members, fields)
- Methods (member functions)
- Constructors
- Destructors (not!)
Object-Oriented Programming in Java: More Capabilities
- Overloading
- Designing "real" classes
- Inheritance
- Quick intro to advanced topics
- Abstract classes
- Interfaces
- Understanding polymorphism
- Setting CLASSPATH and using packages
- Visibility modifiers
- Creating on-line documentation using JavaDoc
Applets and Basic Graphics
- 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
More Java Syntax and Utilities
- Mutating vs. returning results
- Data structures
- ArrayList
- LinkedList
- HashMap
- Generics
- printf
- varargs
- String vs. StringBuilder
Asynchronous Event Handling
- General event-handling strategy
- Handling events with separate listeners
- Handling events by implementing interfaces
- Handling events with named inner classes
- Handling events with anonymous inner classes
- The standard AWT listener types
- Subtleties with mouse events
AWT Components
- 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
Organizing Windows with Layout Managers
- How layout managers simplify interface design
- Standard layout managers
- Positioning components manually
- Strategies for using layout managers effectively
Drawing with Java 2D
- Drawing Shapes
- Paint Styles
- Transparency
- Using Local Fonts
- Stroke Styles
- Coordinate Transformations
- Requesting Drawing Accuracy
GUIs: Basic Swing
- 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
GUIs: Advanced Swing and MVC
- Building a simple static JList
- Adding and removing entries from a JList at runtime
- Making a custom data model
- Making a custom cell renderer
Multithreaded Programming
- 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
Multithreaded Graphics and Animation
- 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
Network Programming: Clients
- 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
Network Programming: Servers
- Steps for creating a server
- A generic network server
- Accepting connections from browsers
- Creating an HTTP server
- Adding multithreading to an HTTP server
Network Programming: Using Serialization to Send High-Level Data Structures
- Idea
- Requirements
- Steps for sending data
- Steps for receiving data
XML Parsing and DOM
- 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