Introduction to Java Programming Training

nTier's Introduction to Java course teaches programming in the Java language – the Java 2 Standard or J2SE platform. It is intended for programmers with experience in languages other than Java, but who may or may not have any previous Java experience. It focuses on procedural-coding skills first, and then offers meticulous, 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 from these basic skills into key parts of the J2SE Core API, including collections, exception handling, 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.

Students come to Java from a wide range of backgrounds, and this course is designed to be as flexible as possible over the upper end of that range. Specifically: 

• Experienced C and C++ programmers will find this course a very good fit and if anything will find that they complete it in a little less than the full five-day timeline. We provide a variety of additional exercises to these students to help them further their Java knowledge and maximize their training time. *Those with experience in languages less like Java, such as Visual Basic, ASP and other Web-scripting languages, and other pseudo-object-oriented languages may need more time in the early going, and this course covers its introductory topics in good depth and offers many optional and "challenge" labs to support this.
  
• Less experienced programmers or those coming from non-structured languages – such as COBOL, PL/1, or 4GL tools – will probably not cover the whole course in a week, and may want to pursue an abbreviated version at a slower pace. This too is quite feasible. Let us customize the course to your team!

We also offer Intermediate Java training and Advanced Java training.

• Chiefly, learn to program effectively in the Java language.
• Understand the Java software architecture, and the design decisions which make Java software portable, efficient, secure and robust.
• Learn how to configure a simple Java development environment.
• Know the grammar, data types and flow control constructs of the Java language for simple procedural programming.
• 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.
• 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.

No prior Java experience is required, but students should be experienced programmers in another third-generation (high-level) language. This course can be customized to fit any skill level.

1. The Java Environment
   • Overview of Architecture
   • Forms for Java Software
   • Three Platforms
   • Java Virtual Machine
   • The Core API
   • Java Runtime Environment
   • Java SDK
   • Java Class Path
   • Portability and Efficiency
2. Language Fundamentals
   • Source File Format
   • Application Classes
   • Code Grammar and Expressions
   • Identifiers
   • Literals
   • Operators
   • Expressions
   • Calling Methods
3. Data Types
   • Primitive Types
   • Type Conversion
   • Numeric Types
   • Characters and Booleans
   • Java 1.5: Enumerations
   • Object References
   • Comparing and Assigning References
   • Strings
   • Arrays
4. Flow Control
   • The main Method
   • Calling and Returning from Methods
   • Conditional Constructs
   • Looping Constructs
   • Java 1.5: the For-Each Loop
   • Processing Arrays
   • Recursion
5. Object-Oriented Software
   • Complex Systems
   • Abstraction
   • Classes and Objects
   • Responsibilities and Collaborators
   • UML
   • Relationships
   • Visibility
6. Classes and Objects
   • Java Classes
   • Constructors and Garbage Collection
   • Naming Conventions and JavaBeans
   • Packages and Imports
   • Relationships Between Classes
   • Using this
   • Visibility
   • Overloading Methods
   • JARs
7. Inheritance and Polymorphism in Java
   • Extending Classes
   • Using Derived Classes
   • Type Identification
   • Compile-Time and Run-Time Type
   • Polymorphism
   • Overriding Methods
   • Superclass Reference
8. Using Classes Effectively
   • Class Loading
   • Static Members
   • Statics and Non-Statics
   • Static Initializers
   • Prohibiting Inheritance
   • Costs of Object Creation
   • Strings and StringBuffers
   • Controlling Object Creation
9. Interfaces and Abstract Classes
   • Separating Interface and Implementation
   • UML Interfaces and Realization
   • Defining Interfaces
   • Implementing and Extending Interfaces
   • Abstract Classes
10. Collections
    • Dynamic Collections
    • Collections vs. Arrays
    • The Collections API
    • Abstraction: The Collection Interface
    • Vector, LinkedList, ArrayList
    • Reading Elements and Downcasting
    • Collecting Primitive Values
    • Algorithmic Programming
    • Iterators
    • Maps
    • Sorted Collections
    • Java 1.5: Generics
    • Java 1.5: Auto-Boxing
    • Java 1.5: Type-Safe Collections
    • Java 1.5: Variable Argument Lists
    • Java 1.5: Formatted Output
11. Exception Handling
    • Reporting and Trapping Errors
    • Exception Handling
    • Throwing Exceptions
    • Declaring Exceptions per Method
    • Catching Exceptions
    • The finally Block
    • Catch-and-Release
    • Chaining Exceptions
12. Inner Classes
    • Passing Behavior
    • Named Inner Classes
    • Outer Object Reference
    • Static Inner Classes
    • Anonymous Inner Classes
13. The Java Streams Model
    • Delegation-Based Stream Model
    • InputStream and OutputStream
    • Media-Based Streams
    • Filtering Streams
    • Readers and Writers
14. Working with Files=
    • File Class
    • Modeling Files and Directories
    • File Streams
    • Random-Access Files
15. Advanced Stream Techniques
    • Buffering
    • Data Streams
    • Push-Back Parsing
    • Byte-Array Streams and String Readers and Writers
16. Java Serialization
    • The Challenge of Object Serialization
    • Serialization API
    • Serializable Interface
    • ObjectInputStream and ObjectOutputStream
    • The Serialization Engine
    • Transient Fields
    • readObject and writeObject
    • Externalizable Interface