Further Java

Lecturer: Mr T.L. Harris (tlh20cl.cam.ac.uk)

No. of lectures: 12

Prerequisite courses: Programming in Java, Data Structures and Algorithms, Operating Systems and Concurrent Systems

Aims

The course will develop an understanding of general programming techniques using advanced features of the Java programming language and standard Java APIs as vehicles.

Lectures

• Programming with objects. Inheritance and interfaces. Exceptions. Nested classes. Reflection. [3 lectures]

• Concurrency. Creating multiple threads. Concurrency control using locks and wait/notify operations. The volatile modifier. [3 lectures]

• Graphical user interfaces. The Abstract Windowing Toolkit, Java Beans, Java Studio. [3 lectures]

• Distributed computing. Sockets and remote method invocation. [2 lectures]

• Application programming. Project management and development environments, Java Workshop. [1 lecture]

Objectives

On completing the course, students should be able to

• understand and apply techniques for building applications from multiple classes, combined using inheritance, composition, nested classes, reflection and interfaces

• describe and use multi-threaded applications with appropriate synchronisation

• explain the role of abstraction and concurrency in a GUI toolkit, using the AWT as an example

• explain the components of a distributed program and its implementation with RMI

Recommended books

The following books are the official reference guides to the Java Programming Language and the standard APIs:

Arnold, K. & Gosling, J. (1997). The Java Programming Language. Addison-Wesley (2nd ed.).
Bracha, G., Gosling, J., Joy, B. & Steele, G. (2000). The Java Language Specification. Addison-Wesley (2nd ed.). http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/index.html
Gosling, J. & Yellin, F. (1996). The Java Application Programming Interface, vol. 1. Core Packages. Addison-Wesley.
Gosling, J. & Yellin, F. (1996). The Java Application Programming Interface, vol. 2. Window Toolkit and Applets. Addison-Wesley.

The following books take a more tutorial stance. They are less suitable as reference texts, but are more approachable to those with less practical programming experience.

Eckel, B. (1998). Thinking in Java. Prentice-Hall.
Flanagan, D. (1997). Java in a Nutshell. O'Reilly (2nd ed.).
Flanagan, D. (1997). Java Examples in a Nutshell. O'Reilly (2nd ed.).

The Java FAQ is a collection of questions that the designers of the Java Programming Language have been frequently asked. The answers provide insight into the design of the language and how and why it differs from other object-oriented languages.

Kanerva, J. (1997). The Java FAQ. Addison-Wesley.