By Bradley Kjell
These notes cover most of a beginning course in computer science using Java. They assume no background in programming. They are written to supplement a textbook or to be used alone. They provide discussion and simple examples of the important topics in programming. You can learn quite a lot about Java by going through these notes (and by running and playing with the programs, as discussed in chapter 7.) But to get a thorough grounding in the language you should also study a text book and write many programs on your own. Try to do one or two of the suggested programming exercises per chapter.
For maximum benefit, go though these notes interactively, thinking about and answering the question at the bottom of each page. There are about 15 pages per chapter. If you spend about 3 minutes per page each chapter will take about 45 minutes; much more, if you copy and run some of the programs. If you are a beginning programmer, plan on spending more than a month with this.
These notes assume that you have the Java Development Kit (JDK) version 1.1 or later from Sun (http://www.javasoft.com) and a simple text editor such as NotePad. For more about these notes check the frequently asked questions.