104. Intermediate Java Programming

Rev. 1.4.2

 

This course is now available directly from our partner, Capstone Courseware.

This course teaches programming in the Java language – the Java 2 Standard or J2SE platform.  It is intended for students with previous Java experience or training, who already know the fundamentals of the Java architecture and basic procedural programming.  This course provides in-depth coverage of object-oriented concepts and how to apply them to Java software design and development.  The latter part of the course moves key parts of the J2SE Core API, including collections, exception-handling, logging, streams, and object serialization.  The course software also includes an optional overlay of workspace and project files to support use of the Eclipse IDE in the classroom.  (This requires that the instructor be experienced in use of Eclipse and able to walk students through basic tasks in the IDE.)

 

This revision of the course begins Object Innovations’ migration from Java 1.4 to Java 5.0:  it continues to focus on the 1.4.2 SDK and language, but highlights missing features and areas that are improved in the 5.0 JDK and language.  It includes two code examples which will of course not build in the 1.4.2 environment, but work in 5.0 and offer examples of emerging Java-5.0 coding practices.

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

 

·         Chiefly, learn to program effectively in the Java language.

·         Understand Java as a purely object-oriented language, and implement software as systems of classes.

·         Implement and use inheritance and polymorphism, including interfaces and abstract classes.

·         Design appropriate exception handling into Java methods.

·         Use the standard logging API to write diagnostic information at runtime.

·         Understand the structure of streams in Java, and learn how to use streams to manage file I/O.

·         Learn how to use Java Serialization to internalize and externalize potentially complex graphs of objects.

 

Course Duration:  5 days 

 

Prerequisites:  Students must be able to write, compile, test, and debug simple Java programs, using structured programming techniques, strong data types, and flow-control constructs such as conditionals and loops.  Object Innovations’ Course 102 is ideal preparation for this course.

 

1. Review of Java Fundamentals

The Java Architecture

Forms for Java Software

Three Platforms

The Java Language

Numeric Types

Characters and Booleans

Java 5.0: Enumerations

Object References

Strings and Arrays

Conditional Constructs

Looping Constructs

Java 5.0: the For-Each Loop

 

2. Object-Oriented Software

Complex Systems

Abstraction

Classes and Objects

Responsibilities and Collaborators

UML

Relationships

Visibility

 

3. Classes and Objects

Java Classes

Constructors and Garbage Collection

Naming Conventions and JavaBeans

Packages and Imports

Relationships Between Classes

Using this

Visibility

Overloading Methods

JARs

 

4. Inheritance and Polymorphism in Java

Extending Classes

Using Derived Classes

Type Identification

Compile-Time and Run-Time Type

Polymorphism

Overriding Methods

Superclass Reference

 

5. Using Classes Effectively

Class Loading

Static Members

Statics and Non-Statics

Static Initializers

Prohibiting Inheritance

Costs of Object Creation

Strings and StringBuffers

Controlling Object Creation

 

6. Interfaces and Abstract Classes

Separating Interface and Implementation

UML Interfaces and Realization

Defining Interfaces

Implementing and Extending Interfaces

Abstract Classes

 

7. Collections

Dynamic Collections

Collections vs. Arrays

The Collections API

Abstraction: The Collection Interface

Vector, LinkedList, ArrayList

Reading Elements and Downcasting

Collecting Primitive Values

Algorithmic Programming

Iterators

Maps

Sorted Collections

Java 1.5: Generics

Java 1.5: Auto-Boxing

Java 1.5: Type-Safe Collections

Java 1.5: Variable Argument Lists

Java 1.5: Formatted Output

 

8. Exception Handling

Reporting and Trapping Errors

Exception Handling

Throwing Exceptions

Declaring Exceptions per Method

Catching Exceptions

The finally Block

Catch-and-Release

Chaining Exceptions

 

9. Inner Classes

Passing Behavior

Named Inner Classes

Outer Object Reference

Static Inner Classes

Anonymous Inner Classes

 

10. The Java Streams Model

Delegation-Based Stream Model

InputStream and OutputStream

Media-Based Streams

Filtering Streams

Readers and Writers

 

11. Working with Files

File Class

Modeling Files and Directories

File Streams

Random-Access Files

 

12. Advanced Stream Techniques

Buffering

Data Streams

Push-Back Parsing

Byte-Array Streams and String Readers and Writers

 

13.  Java Serialization

The Challenge of Object Serialization

Serialization API

Serializable Interface

ObjectInputStream and ObjectOutputStream

The Serialization Engine

Transient Fields

readObject and writeObject

Externalizable Interface

 

Appendix A.  Learning Resources

 

 

System Requirements

 

Hardware – minimal:                     Pentium 500MHz, 128 meg RAM, 500 meg HD.

Hardware – recommended:           Pentium 1.5gHz, 512 meg RAM, 1 gig HD.

 

Operating system:                          Tested on Windows XP Professional.  The course software should be viable on all Windows or Linux systems which support J2SE 1.4.

 

Software:                                       All free downloadable tools.