Java the First Semester

An introductory book organised as a course covering one semester, designed for level one undergraduate or sub-degree students taking a first course in software development or programming. The topic is taught from first principles and assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. The project has been conceived in response to an overwhelming need for a book that provides a gentle introduction to software development and programming; in particular, it aims at the type of student entering university with no background in the subject matter, often coming from sub-degree courses in other disciplines, or perhaps returning to study after long periods away from formal education. It is the authors' experience that such students have enormous difficulties in grasping the fundamental programming concepts the first time round, and therefore require a simpler and gentler introduction to the subject than is presented in most standard texts. Thus, after briefly introducing the key concepts of object-orientation, the book concentrates on the very simple programming concepts such as declarations of variables and basic control structures. After covering these essential ideas the book returns to look at classes and objects in more detail. Throughout it uses Java as the vehicle for the teaching of these programming principles. Code examples are therefore intended to convey programming concepts as well as explaining the use of the language. The book does more than concentrate on programming issues alone; it takes an integrated approach to software development by also covering basic design principles and standards such as the use of UML (for design on the macro level) and pseudo-code (for design on the micro level). It also introduces testing methodologies, HCI, applets and event-driven visual programming. This differs from most other introductory textbooks on the subject, which tend to concentrate either on development methodologies or on programming. The book is intended to support a 12 week, one semester, introductory course, with practical exercises (suitable for two hour lab sessions) and tutorial examples (suitable for one hour tutorial sessions) with solutions, worked examples and references.