Course Information CIS 6930-01
Fall 2000

Instructors

Course Assistant

Technical Assistance

Course Home Page

Lectures

Monday, Wednesday and Friday 
2:30 pm - 3:20 pm
499 Dirac Science Library

Textbooks

Although this class can be taken by using solely materials on the web, I strongly recommend that you obtain one of these books:

1. Core Java 1.2, Volume 1 - Fundamentals, by Cay Horstmann and Gary Cornell, Sun Microsystems Press, Prentice-Hall, 1999. List price: $42.99, available at SU Bookstore Textbooks. Amazon.com price: $25.79 + $3.95 shipping.

   This book is the first of a two volume set and covers Java programming basics, object-oriented constructs, user interface with Swing components equivalent to the old AWT, and I/O with streams and files.

   Other topics relevant to the course are covered in Volume 2: networking, multithreading, distributed objects with RMI, advanced graphics and GUI components, JDBC and JavaBeans.

   This book contains good examples and good discussion including some insight into how Java implements some of its constructs, what they call "under the hood".

2. Java How to Program, 3rd edition, H.M. Deitel and P.J. Deitel, Prentice-Hall, August 1999. Listed for $65.00 + shipping on amazon.com.

   The third edition of this book contains all the topics listed above for Core Java. I have used this book in the past because it started with more basic programming discussions. However, this edition is too packed with topics to do as complete a job on each topic.

   Both of these books do an excellent job of explaining object-oriented programming.

3. I would like to also recommend for the advanced computer science student a reference book that covers all the details, but doesn't have much in the way of explanations or examples. The O'Reilly nutshell book, Java in a Nutshell does a good job of this for Java 1.1, especially with the companion book Java Examples in a Nutshell. But, there is not yet an edition for Java 1.2.

Method of Course Delivery

All course assignments will be posted on the class Web page and completed assignments and projects will be published on the Web by the students. Grades will also be available on-line.

Students will be given CSIT Unix accounts for their coursework. We will assume that students can access these accounts through telnet from a PC or Unix workstation. Software systems, such as the Java compilers and servlet web server, will be available through the CSIT accounts. These accounts will also provide a class web server with directories where students can make their own homework web page and post their assignments.

We encourage you to use email for individual interactions with the instructors and TA's. Please don't hesitate to ask questions about the homework, lectures or the text!

Course Work

The course work for CIS 6930-01 will consist of 5-6 individual programming assignments.

For all classes, emphasis will be given to the fact that all assignments (and the project) must be given a written description on your homework web page.

Late assignments will receive a deduction in points based on the degree of lateness and to what extent the lateness was caused by technical difficulties.

Individual programming assignments are intended to ensure familiarity with the concepts of Web architecture and the details of programming. The projects are intended to apply these principles to Web applications programmed using Java.