The suggested text is Computing Concepts with Java 2 Essentials by Cay Horstmann. The accompanying website, www.horstmann.com, contains the programming examples from the book and possible laboratory exercises.

This outline is based on a 14 week semester and assumes that there will be a weekly lab and two midterm exams.  It is meant as a guideline to help plan the course for those who have not taught Java before or have not used Horstmann's book.  Chapters 1-7 and Sections 11.1 and 11.2 are to be covered in the first semester.  The remainder of the book is to be covered in the second semester.

The priority of these courses is for the students to learn to program in Java, design programs of moderate length, and to solve problems.  With this in mind, lab and programming exercises should be an integral part of the course.
 
 

ii First Semester: CMP 230: Programming Methods I ii

Week		Reading	Topics	Activities
1	Introduction to Java and Computing	Chapter 1	What is programming, the Anatomy of a Computer, Programming Languages and Machine Code, Compilation Process and Errors, A First Look at Objects, Classes, and Algorithms.	Students should learn the basics of editing, compiling, and running a program. Possible Lab: Introduce basics of the computer lab and java compiler. Compile the "hello world" program on p 21 of the textbook.
2	Fundamental Data Types	Sections 2.1-2.5	Number Types, Assignment, Type Conversion, Constants, Arithmetic, Strings.	Students should learn how to obtain the programs from the textbook (either from the CD or off the webpage). Example: compile the programs discussed in Chapter 2. Possible Lab: Modify the coins example from the chapter to store the total as a double. Or, fix the errors in the program in Review Exercise R2.6, p 93.
3	Reading Input and Introduction to Objects	Sections 2.7-2.8, 3.1-3.2	Reading Input with the ConsoleReader Class, (Optional: Reading Input with Standard Java), Determining Object Behavior, Defining Methods.	Students should write a program that takes input from the keyboard. Possible Lab: p 96 contains several simple calculation programs (calculate area of circle, given radius; given sides, calculate perimeter of rectangle, etc.). Possible Programs: P2.9 (Giving Change), P2.12 (Harder: Separating thousands with a comma), P2.15 (Printing a Grid), P2.19 (Harder: Converting from Military Time), P2.22 (Converting numbers to Months).
4	More on Classes	Sections 3.3-3.7	Instance Variables, Implementing Methods, Constructors, Putting a Class to Work, Discovering Classes.	Students should write a simple program using objects. Possible Lab: P3.1 which sets up a BankAccount object. Possible Programs: P3.2 (Implement an Employee class), P3.9 (Implement a Circle class).
5	Copying Objects and Applets	Sections 3.8-3.9, 4.1-4.3	Copying Object References, Null References, Basic HTML, Simple Applets.	First Exam
6	More on Applets	Sections 4.4-4.9	Graphical Shapes, Colors, Fonts, Simple Drawing, Reading Text Input, Comparing Visual and Numerical Information.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs:
7	Decisions	Sections 5.1-5.3	If-statements, Comparing Values, Multiple Alternatives.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs:
8	Boolean Expressions and Iterations	Sections 5.4, 6.1-6.3	Using Boolean Expressions, While Loops, For Loops, do Loops.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs:
9	More on Iterations	Sections 6.4-6.6	Nested Loops, Processing Input, Random Numbers and Simulations.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs:
10	Methods and Parameters	Sections 7.1-7.3	Method Parameters, Different Types of Methods, Static Methods.	Second Exam
11	More on Methods	Sections 7.4-7.6	Return Statements, Static Variables, Scoping.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs:
12	Introduction to Arrays	Sections 11.1-11.2	Using Arrays to Store Data, Array Parameters and Return Values.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs:
13	More on Methods and Recursion	Sections 7.7-7.9	Comments, Preconditions, and Recursions.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs:
14	More on Recursion and Review	Section 7.9	Recursion and Review.	Possible Lab: Possible Programs: