Introduction

We are going to learn how to program in Java, a programming language that has been in use by software developers for over 20 years.

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is the dominant programming paradigm for creating maintainable large-scale software systems (everything from video games to entire operating systems). OOP allows the programmer to break up a large piece of software into modular pieces, each of which can be developed independently of the others.

Java is part of the C/C++ family of languages, and its syntax reflects this ancestry. Java was designed from the ground up to be object-oriented.

In this course, we will learn many of the major features of the Java language. These features (or something equivalent) can be found in all major programming languages in use today (e.g. C, C++, Python, Javascript), making it significantly easier to learn a second language. We will begin writing simple text-based programs that run from the command line, as is typically done when learning Java. However, we will also use the Processing software libraries to write Java programs with animated graphics and user interaction.

By the end of this course, you will be prepared to take the AP Computer Science A exam, as well as to move on to more in-depth studies of theoretical computer science and/or practical software development.

Let’s code!

Dr. Kessner