Introduction to Programming: Object-oriented Approach Using Java: Amazon.co.uk: David Arnow, Gerald Weiss: Books

Product Description

Using the Java language, this book introduces the beginning computer science student to the concepts of class, object, and message in the first chapter. This object-oriented approach is used throughout the text, as students learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming along with the basics of imperative programming. Because Java is an object-oriented language that reflects the acquired wisdom of thirty years of programming language design, the book can effectively focus on programming and the process of class design. Early on, a clear, usable procedure for solving problems by developing classes is presented and then used throughout the text.Java's support for GUI and network programming makes a great setting for diverse programming examples: a calculator, a strategy game, reading the Dow Jones from Yahoo!, a Web surveyor application, scheduling songs for a rock-and-roll radio station, as well as traditional payroll and student GPA computations. Working with these and other examples, students learn to think like a programmer, analyze problems, devise solutions, design classes, and write code.Features * Uses the necessary features of Java 1.1 while teaching CS1 concepts. * Uses object-oriented concepts from the very beginning--classes, objects, and messages are all introduced in Chapter 1--and develops them throughout. * Applies a consistent class design procedure, usable by beginners. * Contains graphic user interface (GUI) supplements in each chapter. * Provides an early introduction to testing, covering test drivers, debugging, and test case selection. * Includes a chapter with three robust applications--a LOGO turtle, a Web surveyor, and Mancala (a strategy game)--which use the text's class design procedure and allow the students to tie the material together. 0201311844B04062001

From the Back Cover

Java's support for GUI and network programming makes a great setting for diverse programming examples: a calculator, a strategy game, reading the Dow Jones from Yahoo!, a Web surveyor application, scheduling songs for a rock-and-roll radio station, as well as traditional payroll and student GPA computations. Working with these and other examples, students learn to think like a programmer, analyze problems, devise solutions, design classes, and write code.

Features

Uses the necessary features of Java 1.1 while teaching CS1 concepts.
Uses object-oriented concepts from the very beginning--classes, objects, and messages are all introduced in Chapter 1--and develops them throughout.
Applies a consistent class design procedure, usable by beginners.
Contains graphic user interface (GUI) supplements in each chapter.
Provides an early introduction to testing, covering test drivers, debugging, and test case selection.
Includes a chapter with three robust applications--a LOGO turtle, a Web surveyor, and Mancala (a strategy game)--which use the text's class design procedure and allow the students to tie the material together.

0201311844B04062001

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Intro for people who can already program 13 Nov 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Utterly useless, the learning curve is non existent and although the worked examples are useful it makes no difference because you can't understand why they've done what they have. A waste of money.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Not suited for Beginners 13 Mar 2000

Yet another book with 'Introduction' in the title that is far from suited to the novice programmer. The book starts at a reasonable pace, but becomes too complicated very suddenly. The concepts are all introduced at once and this makes the code exampled difficult to understand. This book is only really suitable as a resource material for a programming course, rather than for people sitting at home learning a language. It also becomes quickly apparent that the code examples are full of bugs. Hopefully these will be fixed by the next release, but there is a lot of work to be done before this can be called an 'Introduction to Programming'.

Perhaps this Better Suits the Intermediate Programmer 27 Aug 1999

Much like the "introductory" computer science course I took in Spring 1999, the meaning of the word "introductory" seems to be unclear. We begin the book with a very comforting foray into object-oriented programming with the authors telling the students to keep up with the readings and examples in order to be well on their way to solid programmers. And, these words are kept in the initial chapters as real-life examples meet their computer program counterparts. The examples are worked nicely and are somewhat easy to follow.

Once we hit Chapter 3, though, there is a whiplash transition in terms of the material covered. Before the student knows it, he or she is coding their own Java class with instance variables, interfaces, subclasses, reference variables, boolean expressions, arrays, vectors, enumerations, iteration, lists, searching, sorting, stacks, queues, exceptions, overloading, overriding and not to mention recursion. And, this is all before the half-way mark.

If the authors wish to promote a solid introductory book to the Java language, the first thing is to eliminate recursion. This is not introductory material. Even though the authors try to simplify the topic by constantly comparing example code to a dishwashing chore after a meal, recursion is as difficult as it sounds. Also, searching, sorting, stacks, and queues best fit a book on data structures. Overall, though, I must commend the authors on the use of English when writing this book. I have read too many books where the psuedo-code makes less sense than the actual code itself. Thankfully, this is not one of them. But, if the book were trimmed down to just the basics, then it would truly fit its title and serve as an excellent welcoming to the expansive library of the Java programming language.

Rating: B-