Overall For The Course

In the beginning of this course I learned three different methods of problem solving

• Problem Decomposition - breaking the problem into manageable parts
  
• Goal Directed Planning - setting a series of goals to solve the ultimate goal - the problem itself
  
• Imaginative Construction - Solving a problem by constructing it and breaking it down into parts
  

Also learned was the basics of Java including object oriented programming,  which Java is at the very foundation when James Gosling of Sun Microsystems designed it.   Application archictectures were taught as well and that put together some nice pieces that I have been using for most of my programming life (from about 15 on when I started with C).  

We got to work on some nice Sun hardware and using tools that I have been use to using under Linux such as Xemacs and Sun's JDK.   I also adapted to doing Java under the Windows environment since I may not have Linux always at my disposal.   Another nice thing learned along the way on my own was that Sun offers Forte' for Java.   It's a Rapid Application Development tool that can also be used to created standard Java console applications which is what we have done in this course.   It's free from Sun and it will work with Professor Graci's & your own classes by allowing you to add it to your classpath.  

Speaking of classpath's we learned about Java packages and how they are powerful to use for librarying a class so it can be used by other programs.   This is a major tenent in object oriented programming - code reuse.   This way you don't have to recreate the wheel everytime you want to write a program,  just use what has been created for you.   I learned about this powerful idea using the Word class and of course the Blue classes.  

I learned about operators,  methods and constructors and how to overload methods and create multiple constructors for a class.   This another key area where object oriented programming shines.   No matter what programming language is used this is a great thing.  

Learning about control,  looping and decision constructs under Java is a key thing to know.   However since it's mostly like C it was old hat for me anyways but good review.  

What I take away from this class is a good foundation in Java that I look forward to building upon with books that I own and do some really cool stuff in a great language.