CSE 4510: Special Topics in Computer Science--Java (Spring 1999)

General info

Instructor

Ryan Stansifer <ryan@cs.fit.edu>

Office hours

Check my WWW page for upto date information, you are welcome to send me e-mail

Lectures

Lectures are from 3:30 pm to 4:45 Tuesdays and Thursdays in A 116 (the Aeronautics Building).

Class URL

http://www.cs.fit.edu/~ryan/cse4510/

WWW-based Bulletin Board

The Computer Sciences ListServ Site has a WWW-based bulletin board especially for this class. Please read and contribute to it.

Catalog Description

CSE 4510. This course explores new and emerging topics within the various disciplines included in the field of computer science. The subject matter of the course will vary, depending on the instructor and other available resources. Course may be repeated for credit, provided the topics change. (Prerequisite: Data structures or permission of the instructor.)

We will learn the Java programming language and some of its libraries. Core Java, classes, exception handing, packages, threads, internationalization, GUI, applets, networking, RMI, introspection (Java beans), cryptography [maybe], JDBC [maybe].

Textbook

The textbook is the fourth edition of the book below. The book is for your reference only, we will not use any book specifically in the course of the semester.
van der Linden Peter van der Linden.
Just Java 1.2, fourth edition.
SunSoft Press Java Series.
Sun Microsystem Press, Mountain View, California; Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1999.
ISBN 0-13-010534-1, list price $44.99 US.

book cover
van der Linden Peter van der Linden.
Just Java 1.1 and Beyond, third edition.
SunSoft Press Java Series.
Sun Microsystem Press, Mountain View, California; Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1998.
ISBN 0-13-784174-4, list price $44.95 US, 704 pages.

book cover

Grading

There will be no tests. Grades will based on a series of programming assignments. The numeric scores for the assignments are available on the WWW.

Misc

Do not leave debug statements in your program; there should be no output that is not specifically requested. If some of the example programs print messages about what the program is doing that is because there are example programs. This does not mean your program should print extra messages; take them out after you are finished debugging your program.

Tabs

You are responsible for producing the most readable program possible. One impediment to readable programs is the tab character. The tab character is interpreted by different software applications differently. A tab character makes it difficult to format your program properly. Since you have no control over how your program will be examined, a tab character in your program may result in loss of readability (and, hence, in loss of points). Take pride in the appearance of the programs you turn in, do not use tabs. Some program development applications use tabs, make sure these applications can produce programs without tabs, or use different applications.

In the worse case, you can use the Unix program "expand" to replace tabs characters by spaces. This is, of course, imperfect. In the case where a programs uses both spaces and tab characters, it is impossible to tell what indenting was intended.

I recommending indenting by 3 spaces--4 spaces wastes too much horizontal white space, and 2 spaces does not leave enough visual contrast.

Schedule

Tuesday, January 12, 1999first lecture
Friday, January 15, 1999lab assignment #1 due
Friday, January 22, 1999lab assignment #2 due
Friday, January 29, 1999lab assignment #3 and #4 due
Friday, February 5, 1999lab assignment #5 due
Friday, February 12, 1999lab assignment #6 due
Not turned inlab assignment #7
Friday, March 5, 1999lab assignment #8 due
March 8 -- March 12, 1999Spring break - no classes
Friday, March 26, 1999lab assignment #9 due
Not turned inlab assignment #10 due
Friday, April 16, 1999lab assignment #11 due
Friday, April 23, 1999lab assignment #12 due
Friday, May 7, 1999final assignment due

Reading

Information on the net

See Java Resources
Ryan Stansifer <ryan@cs.fit.edu>
Last modified: Tue May 11 10:20:26 EDT 1999