Java is the world's most popular and widely-applied programming language, but it is large, complex, and sometimes difficult to get started with. This course gives a practical, hands-on introduction to programming with Java 6, the latest version of the language. It provides thorough coverage of the the foundational Java topics: basic syntax, object-oriented programming, and core data structures; it also gives a fast-moving survey of some of the most important libraries: graphical user interfaces, multithreaded applications, network programming, serialization, and XML parsing. In each section, it gives details on the most important topics, surveys more advanced or lesser-used topics, stresses best practices, and gives plenty of working examples. Each section is followed by a series of hands-on exercises that use Java 6 and Eclipse to reinforce the concepts. There are a choice of exercises of varying complexity so as to accommodate developers with various levels of expertise and previous experience.

Marty normally runs on-site training courses at customer locations. This is easier administratively, is better for clients since the topics and schedule can be customized, and is more cost effective for students since no travel is required. However, due to demand from those who do not have enough students for an on-site course, Marty will be running a public (open enrollment) Java 6 training course February 7-11 at the Johns Hopkins Dorsey Center in Elkridge MD.

The course is developed and taught by Marty Hall, an experienced developer, award-winning instructor, popular conference speaker (5 times at JavaOne), and author of several bestselling Java books.

Marty Hall is the author of six popular Java EE books, including Core Servlets and JavaServer Pages, the all-time worldwide bestselling servlet/JSP book, published in Bulgarian, Chinese Simplified Script (Mainland China), Chinese Traditional Script (Taiwan), Czech, Greek, English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Marty is president of coreservlets.com, a training and consulting company focusing on server-side Java technology and Rich Internet Apps with Ajax. In addition to long Java development and consulting experience, Marty has an extensive background in teaching and training, having given training courses on J2EE, JSF 2.0, GWT, and Ajax topics in Japan, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Mexico, Puerto Rico, India, and dozens of US venues. A popular and entertaining speaker, Marty has spoken at conferences and user groups around the world, including Comdex, the Web 2.0 Expo, the Great Indian Developer Summit, and five times at JavaOne. Marty is also adjunct faculty in the Johns Hopkins University part-time graduate program in Computer Science, where he directs the Java and Web-related concentration areas.

The course consists of an approximately equal mixture of lecture and hands-on lab time. The course assumes that all students are experienced programmers in some language: this is not a course for first-time programmers. Experience with C, C++, C#, or Objective-C is particularly helpful.

The course will be held at the Johns Hopkins Dorsey Center in Elkridge, Maryland. This is a modern, comfortable venue with separate computers for each student, fast internet connections, and with coffee, snacks, and meals included. Class meets from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm daily. For students who prefer to bring their own laptops, fast wifi is available, and you can email the instructor for information on installing the class software in advance.

For Maryland residents, the location is centrally located 5 minutes from BWI airport and has plenty of free parking. For out-of-town students, there are many hotels within 1 mile.

The five-day course costs $2395 per student and includes an extensive course notebook, a commercial textbook, exercises, exercise solutions, breakfast, snacks, and lunch. Compare this price to courses from Sun, Learning Tree, GlobalKnowledge, and Oracle University that cost around $2400 for four-day courses and $3000 for five-day courses that do not include textbooks or meals. Besides, those courses almost always use an unknown instructor who did not develop the course materials and often lacks significant real-world development experience.

To register, fill out and send in the course registration form. Space is limited: five previous offerings of coreservlets.com courses were full. Bonus: Register at least a week in advance and get a $50 gift certificate from amazon.com.

Want details on the topics? See the detailed curriculum below. Have questions on the topics even after reading that? Email the instructor at hall@coreservlets.com. Want information on the instructor? See this brief bio. Want to register? See the course registration form. Registration questions? Email the registrar at registrar@coreservlets.com or phone (410) 429-5535.

Guinea pigs? No! Marty's courses are well-tested, having been taught in 8 countries and dozens of US venues. We don't use your developers as guinea pigs for new materials. Regurgitation? No! Marty developed all his own materials. No contract instructor regurgitating memorized PowerPoint slides. Green? No! Marty is an experienced developer, and is the author of 6 popular Java EE texts from Prentice Hall. The course gives best practices and real-world strategies. No newbie instructor dodging tough questions.

Course now includes an introduction to database access with JDBC

Introduction to and Overview of Java

• Truths / Myths About Java
  • Java is Web-Enabled?
  • Java is Safe?
  • Java is Cross-Platform?
  • Java is Simple?
  • Java is Powerful?
• Common Java Protocols and Packages
• Getting Started
  • Eclipse
  • Applications
  • Applets

Basic Java Syntax

• Creating, compiling, and executing simple Java programs
• Accessing arrays
• Looping
• Indenting code
• Using if statements
• Comparing strings
• Building arrays
  • One-step process
  • Two-step process
  • Multidimensional arrays
• Performing basic mathematical operations
• Reading command-line input

Basic Object-Oriented Programming in Java

• Similarities and differences between Java and C++
• Object-oriented nomenclature and conventions
• Instance variables (data members, fields)
• Methods (member functions)
• Constructors
• Destructors (not!)

Object-Oriented Programming in Java: More Capabilities

• Overloading
• Designing "real" classes
• Inheritance
• Quick intro to advanced topics
  • Abstract classes
  • Interfaces
  • Understanding polymorphism
  • Setting CLASSPATH and using packages
  • Visibility modifiers
  • Creating on-line documentation using JavaDoc

Applets and Basic Graphics

• Applet restrictions
• Basic applet and HTML template
• The applet life-cycle
• Customizing applets through HTML parameters
• Methods available for graphical operations
• Using try/catch blocks
• Loading and drawing images
• Controlling image loading

More Java Syntax and Utilities

• Mutating vs. returning results
• Data structures
  • ArrayList
  • LinkedList
  • HashMap
• Generics
• printf
• varargs
• String vs. StringBuilder

Asynchronous Event Handling

• General event-handling strategy
• Handling events with separate listeners
• Handling events by implementing interfaces
• Handling events with named inner classes
• Handling events with anonymous inner classes
• The standard AWT listener types
• Subtleties with mouse events

AWT Components

• Basic AWT windows
• Creating lightweight components
• Closing frames
• Using object serialization to save components to disk
• Basic AWT user interface controls
• Processing events in GUI controls

Organizing Windows with Layout Managers

• How layout managers simplify interface design
• Standard layout managers
• Positioning components manually
• Strategies for using layout managers effectively

Drawing with Java 2D

• Drawing Shapes
• Paint Styles
• Transparency
• Using Local Fonts
• Stroke Styles
• Coordinate Transformations
• Requesting Drawing Accuracy

GUIs: Basic Swing

• New features
• Basic approach
• Starting points
  • JApplet, JFrame
• Swing equivalent of AWT components
  • JLabel, JButton, JPanel, JSlider
• New Swing components
  • JColorChooser, JInternalFrame, JOptionPane, JToolBar, JEditorPane
• Other simple components
  • JCheckBox, JRadioButton, JTextField, JTextArea, JFileChooser

GUIs: Advanced Swing and MVC

• Building a simple static JList
• Adding and removing entries from a JList at runtime
• Making a custom data model
• Making a custom cell renderer

Multithreaded Programming

• Why threads?
• Basic approach
  • Make a task list with Executors.newFixedThreadPool
  • Add tasks to the list with tasks.execute
• Two variations on the theme
  • Separate instances of Runnable
  • One instance of Runnable
• Race conditions and synchronization
• Helpful Thread-related methods
• Advanced topics in concurrency

Multithreaded Graphics and Animation

• Approaches for multithreaded graphics
  • Redraw everything in paint
  • Have routines other than paint draw directly on window
  • Override update and have paint do incremental updating
  • Double buffering
• Reducing flicker in animations
• Implementing double buffering
• Animating images
• Controlling timers

Network Programming: Clients

• Creating sockets
• Implementing a generic network client
• Parsing data
  • StringTokenizer
  • String.split and regular expressions
• Retrieving files from an HTTP server
• Retrieving Web documents by using the URL class

Network Programming: Servers

• Steps for creating a server
• A generic network server
• Accepting connections from browsers
• Creating an HTTP server
• Adding multithreading to an HTTP server

Network Programming: Using Serialization to Send High-Level Data Structures

• Idea
• Requirements
• Steps for sending data
• Steps for receiving data

Accessing Databases with JDBC

• Overview of JDBC technology
• JDBC drivers
• Seven basic steps in using JDBC
• Using JNDI with JDBC
• Retrieving data from a ResultSet
• Using prepared and callable statements
• Handling SQL exceptions
• Submitting multiple statements as a transaction