Further Java

Lecturer: Dr P. Robinson (pr@cl.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 as a vehicle.

Lectures

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

• Concurrency. Threads, synchronisation and notification. [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

• describe and use objects and inheritance

• understand and apply abstraction including interfaces and reflection

• use exceptions to write robust programs

• describe and use internal concurrency with threads

• analyse a program and provide appropriate synchronisation

• explain the role of abstraction and concurrency in a GUI toolkit

• describe the structure of the AWT and discuss its use

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

• discuss the use of program development environments

Recommended books

Arnold, K. & Gosling, J. (1996). The Java Programming Language. Addison-Wesley.
Bishop, J. (1998). Java Gently. Addison-Wesley.
Campione, M. & Walrath, K. (1996). The Java Tutorial. Addison-Wesley.
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.).
Gosling, J., Joy, B. & Steele, G. (1996). The Java Language Specification. Addison-Wesley.
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.
Kanerva, J. (1997). The Java FAQ. Addison-Wesley.
Smith, M. (1999). Java - an Object-Oriented Language. McGraw-Hill.