The Java Introduction: what's needed/wanted?

[wtd]

So, a thread devoted to nothing but suggestions on improving the Introduction to Java. All suggestions are welcome. Inane ones will be ridiculed.

[Nick]

I'd like to see more about Frames/JFrames and what can be done with them, and more about Swing and it's components

[wtd]

Swing is a big topic, and not integral to the language, which is why I've stayed away from that.

[rdrake]

Perhaps some sort of comparison of Turing to Java. I could even write a tutorial if somebody gives me something to write it on.

[Nick]

rdrake @ Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:13 am wrote:

Perhaps some sort of comparison of Turing to Java. I could even write a tutorial if somebody gives me something to write it on.

interesting you mention that, Holtsoft has a very crude, not well done chart on the subject, maybe you could redo it. Lemme find it

EDIT: www.holtsoft.com/java/resources/turing_to_java.pdf

[HeavenAgain]

re-use of code, mainly polymorphism, and the power of OOP, after all objects makes Java

[r691175002]

I think that OOP theory and usefulness, perhaps even design patterns should get a mention because OOP is so fundamental to Java. It is a hard concept to grasp at first, and doesn't immediately seem useful so it will be hard to impart to a new programmer.

I may also throw in a bit about Javadocs and how to take advantage of them, since I think that good documentation is key to being effective in a language with so many built in libraries.

[[Gandalf]]

Perhaps some more about generics.

[rizzix]

Yes wtd, some discussion on design patterns would be ideal

Gandalf: Anything in particular? I think he covered quite a bit in fair detail.


Edit: However, after second thoughts, I don't think this is suited for an "introduction" to Java. Maybe a separate "intermediate java" tutorial, or so.

[rizzix]

r691175002 @ Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:26 am wrote:

I may also throw in a bit about Javadocs and how to take advantage of them,

I think this is very important. I'm sure wtd agrees with this. I second this, btw.

[Nick]

r691175002 @ Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:26 am wrote:

may also throw in a bit about Javadocs and how to take advantage of them, since I think that good documentation is key to being effective in a language with so many built in libraries.

before I had no idea how to use Javadocs, I even bashed it on IRC, then recently I took another look and found them extremely helpful, it's a great idea for a tutorial on how to use

[shadowman544]

he does not lie he had this argument with me for like 2 weeks at the beginning of the semester

[andrew.]

I'm going to try to learn Java this summer and I would like to see how to get the user to input data (like get in Turing). I quickly went through the tutorial and it doesn't say how to do this.

[syntax_error]

andrew. @ Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:24 pm wrote:

I'm going to try to learn Java this summer and I would like to see how to get the user to input data (like get in Turing). I quickly went through the tutorial and it doesn't say how to do this.

scanner class.
is what your looking for, and till some one makes a tut on it, just Google it you will get many many examples.

[Nick]

there's many ways to do it:
Scanner
JOptionPane
KeyEvent

and I'm sure there's still plenty more