Description
Organization of the Book
The chapters can be grouped into five parts that, taken together, form a comprehensive introduction to Java programming, data structures and algorithms, and database and Web programming. Because knowledge is cumulative, the early chapters provide the conceptual basis for understanding programming and guide students through simple examples and exercises; subsequent chapters progressively present Java programming in detail, culminating with the development of comprehensive Java applications.
Part I: Fundamentals of Programming (Chapters 1–7)
The first part of the book is a stepping stone, preparing you to embark on the journey of learning Java. You will begin to know Java (Chapter 1) and will learn fundamental programming techniques with primitive data types, variables, constants, assignments, expressions, and operators (Chapter 2), control statements (Chapters 3–4), methods (Chapter 5), and arrays (Chapters 6–7). After Chapter 6, you may jump to Chapter 20 to learn how to write recursive methods for solving inherently recursive problems.
Part II: Object-Oriented Programming (Chapters 8–11, 13–14, 19)
This part introduces object-oriented programming. Java is an object-oriented programming language that uses abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism to provide great flexibility, modularity, and reusability in developing software. You will learn programming with objects and classes (Chapters 8–10), class inheritance (Chapter 11), polymorphism (Chapter 11), exception handling (Chapter 13), abstract classes (Chapter 14), and interfaces (Chapter 14). Processing strings will be introduced in Chapter 9 along with text I/O. Binary I/O is introduced in Chapter 19.
Part III: GUI Programming (Chapters 12, 15–18, 32–36, and 44)
This part introduces elementary Java GUI programming in Chapters 12 and 15–18 and advanced Java GUI programming in Chapters 32–36 and 44. Major topics include GUI basics (Chapter 12), drawing shapes (Chapter 15), event-driven programming (Chapter 16), creating graphical user interfaces (Chapter 17), and writing applets (Chapter 18). You will learn the architecture of Java GUI programming and use the GUI components to develop applications and applets from these elementary GUI chapters. The advanced GUI chapters introduce Java GUI programming in more depth and breadth. You will delve into JavaBeans and learn how to develop custom events and source components in Chapter 32, review and explore new containers, layout managers, and borders in Chapter 33, learn how to create GUI with menus, popup menus, toolbars, dialogs, and internal frames in Chapter 34, develop components using the MVC approach and explore the advanced Swing components JSpinner, JList, JComboBox, JSpinner, and JTable, and JTree in Chapters 35 and 36. Bonus Chapter 44 introduces Java 2D.
Part IV: Algorithms and Data Structures (Chapters 20–28, 45–48)
This part introduces the main subjects in a typical data structures course. Chapter 20 introduces recursion to write methods for solving inherently recursive problems. Chapter 21 introduces generics to improve software reliability. Chapter 22 introduces the Java Collection Framework, which defines a set of useful API for data structures. Chapter 23 introduces measurement of algorithm efficiency in order to choose an appropriate algorithm for applications. Chapter 24 introduces classic sorting algorithms. You will learn how to implement several classic data structures lists, queues, priority queues, binary search trees, AVL trees, splay trees, 2-4 trees, B-trees, and red-black trees in Chapters 25–26 and 45–47. Chapters 27 and 28 introduce graph applications. Chapter 48 introduces hashing.
Part V: Advanced Java Programming (Chapters 29–31, 37–43)
This part of the book is devoted to advanced Java programming. Chapter 29 treats the use of multithreading to make programs more responsive and interactive. Chapter 30 introduces how to write programs that talk with each other from different hosts over the Internet. Chapter 31 covers the use of internationalization support to develop projects for international audiences. Chapter 37 introduces the use of Java to develop database projects, Chapter 38 introduces advanced Java database programming, and Chapters 39 and 40 introduce how to use Java servlets and JSP to generate dynamic contents from Web servers. Chapter 41 introduces rapid Web application development using JavaServer Faces. Chapter 42 introduces Web services. Chapter 43 introduces remote method invocation.