Intermediate Java Training (5 days)

Intermediate Java Programming Course Overview

This course teaches programming in the Java language -- i.e. the Java Standard Edition platform. It is intended for students with previous Java experience or training, who already know the fundamentals of the Java architecture and basic procedural programming. This course provides in-depth coverage of object-oriented concepts and how to apply them to Java software design and development. The latter part of the course moves key parts of the Java SE Core API, including collections, exception-handling, logging, streams, and object serialization. The course software also includes an optional overlay of workspace and project files to support use of the Eclipse IDE in the classroom. (This requires that the instructor be experienced in use of Eclipse and able to walk students through basic tasks in the IDE.)

This revision of the course targets the 6.0 version of the Java language and Core API; but it is equally applicable to Java 5 and groups looking for Java training who know they'll be using Java 5 are encouraged to use this course. For training within the Java 1.4 environment, please see version 1.4.3 of this course, which works to the old version but looks ahead to some Java-5/6 language features; to read more about different versions of Java and for help deciding on which version of this course to use, see "Java Versions and Terminology Demystified".)

Intermediate Java Programming Course Goals

• Chiefly, learn to program effectively in the Java language.
• Understand Java as a purely object-oriented language, and implement software as systems of classes.
• Implement and use inheritance and polymorphism, including interfaces and abstract classes.
• Design appropriate exception handling into Java methods.
• Use the standard logging API to write diagnostic information at runtime.
• Understand the structure of streams in Java, and learn how to use streams to manage file I/O.
• Learn how to use Java Serialization to internalize and externalize potentially complex graphs of objects.

Intermediate Java Programming Course Prerequisites

Experience in the following areas is required:

• Students must be able to write, compile, test, and debug simple Java programs, using structured programming techniques, strong data types, and flow-control constructs such as conditionals and loops.

Intermediate Java Programming Course Outline

1. Review of Java Fundamentals
   1. The Java Architecture
   2. Forms for Java Software
   3. Three Platforms
   4. The Java Language
   5. Numeric Types
   6. Characters and Booleans
   7. Enumerations
   8. Object References
   9. Strings and Arrays
   10. Conditional Constructs
   11. Looping Constructs
   12. Varargs
2. Object-Oriented Software
   1. Complex Systems
   2. Abstraction
   3. Classes and Objects
   4. Responsibilities and Collaborators
   5. UML
   6. Relationships
   7. Visibility
3. Classes and Objects
   1. Java Classes
   2. Constructors and Garbage Collection
   3. Naming Conventions and JavaBeans
   4. Relationships Between Classes
   5. Using this
   6. Visibility
   7. Packages and Imports
   8. Overloading Methods and Constructors
   9. JARs
4. Inheritance and Polymorphism in Java
   1. UML Specialization
   2. Extending Classes
   3. Using Derived Classes
   4. Type Identification
   5. Compile-Time and Run-Time Type
   6. Polymorphism
   7. Overriding Methods
   8. The @Override Annotation
   9. Superclass Reference
5. Using Classes Effectively
   1. Class Loading
   2. Static Members
   3. Statics and Non-Statics
   4. Static Initializers
   5. Static Imports
   6. Prohibiting Inheritance
   7. Costs of Object Creation
   8. Strings and StringBuffers
   9. Controlling Object Creation
   10. Understanding Enumerated Types
   11. Stateful and Behavioral Enumerations
6. Interfaces and Abstract Classes
   1. Separating Interface and Implementation
   2. UML Interfaces and Realization
   3. Defining Interfaces
   4. Implementing and Extending Interfaces
   5. Abstract Classes
7. Collections
   1. Dynamic Collections vs. Arrays
   2. UML Parameterized Type
   3. Generics
   4. Using Generics
   5. The Collections API
   6. The Collection<E> and List<E> Interfaces
   7. The ArrayList<E> and LinkedList<E> Classes
   8. Looping Over Collections: Iterable<E>
   9. Collecting Primitive Values: Auto-Boxing
   10. Using Wildcards with Generic Types
   11. Iterators and the Iterator<E> Interface
   12. Maps and the Map<K,V> Interface
   13. Sorted Collections
   14. The SortedSet<E> and SortedMap<K,V> Interfaces
   15. The Collections Class Utility
   16. Algorithms
   17. Conversion Utilities
8. Exception Handling and Logging
   1. Reporting and Trapping Errors
   2. Exception Handling
   3. Throwing Exceptions
   4. Declaring Exceptions per Method
   5. Catching Exceptions
   6. The finally Block
   7. Catch-and-Release
   8. Chaining Exceptions
   9. The J2SE Logging API
   10. Severity Levels
   11. Log Hierarchies
9. Inner Classes
   1. Passing Behavior
   2. Inner Classes in GUI Programming
   3. Named Inner Classes
   4. Outer Object Reference
   5. Static Inner Classes
   6. Anonymous Inner Classes
10. The Java Streams Model
    1. Delegation-Based Stream Model
    2. InputStream and OutputStream
    3. Media-Based Streams
    4. Filtering Streams
    5. Readers and Writers
11. Working with Files
    1. File Class
    2. Modeling Files and Directories
    3. File Streams
    4. Random-Access Files
12. Advanced Stream Techniques
    1. Buffering
    2. Data Streams
    3. Push-Back Parsing
    4. Byte-Array Streams and String Readers and Writers
13. Java Serialization
    1. The Challenge of Object Serialization
    2. Serialization API
    3. Serializable Interface
    4. ObjectInputStream and ObjectOutputStream
    5. The Serialization Engine
    6. Transient Fields
    7. readObject and writeObject
    8. Externalizable Interface
14. Automated Unit Testing with JUnit
    1. Automated Testing
    2. JUnit and Related Tools
    3. The @Test Annotation
    4. The Assert Class Utility
    5. Test Runners
    6. Lifecycle Methods

Intermediate Java Programming Course Materials

Each student will receive a comprehensive set of materials, including course notes and all the programming examples.

Intermediate Java Programming Course Technical Requirements and Setup Instructions

Click here for technical requirements and setup instructions