Re: Entry level Java

[Paul E Johnson]

Charles Staelin got most of the way to a java tutorial, he probably has
it up somewhere, I keep a copy here
http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn/Swarm/OtherPeoplesCode/CharlesJavaTutorial.ZIP

Unfortunately, Charles was promoted :) and didn't work on it anymore.

Swarm is a user community, and it is time for someone to step up and
take hold of that writeup and finish it up. 

In the meantime, I taught a class that had 4 weeks on java programming.
I got some tutorial material together, similar to simple C bug and so
forth. I do not have the Swarm component added in there, but I may
someday. Perhaps you may want to give me some feedback about that. Look
in the doc sub-directory here.  
http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn/ps909/Fall-2001/java/example3.4/
This tells a stupid story about student objects who send messages to
each other, and then a Policeman comes along looking for a student with
a particular fingerprint.  There is no Swarm in here, just an object
oriented simulation.  We could add the swarm part, though, to schedule
the actions in an interesting way, and then create a space where the
people wander around. If you want to backtrack through the building
blocks, just go backwards up the directories. The first week is just
stuff about "what is a variable" and so forth.  I didn't build javadoc
output for the early ones (Comments are in the top of the file
Test.java), but that last one I point you at has a beauty in the doc
directory!

"Methot, Chris" wrote:
> 
> I am working an issue that can only be solved by simulations.  We can't
> really build and test it and if we could there is little likelihood it
> would be stable enough to be repeatable at this point.  As a novice I
> hit on Swarm and decided to use Java because of its insistence on
> correct programming technique (garbage collection and logic checking).
> I am just completing my first Java course (I can flash and scroll text
> with the best of them).
> 
> Now I am looking for Java samples along the lines of Hello_world and
> simpleCBug.  Jheatbugs and Jmousetrap are a little too ambitious for me.
> I tried "porting" simpleCBug but got hung up on minimum restrictions for
> Java Swarm like main().  I tried the SDG csss tutorial sample but the
> tar file has no Make file, many unneeded Java files and I am not able to
> get it to compile.
> 
> I found that in January of 2000 you felt that Java was not a good
> candidate for novice programmers (me).  Despite that, your slides from
> SDG csss indicate that it seems superior for that purpose.  I believe
> you felt that there would be a time when that would change.  I checked
> the mail archives to see if this had changed.
> 
> 2 Questions:
> Has there been any additional simple self-teaching progressive Java
> examples added since January of 2000?
> 
> Would it be possible (with some guidance) to port Hello_world or
> simpleCBug (ultimately ending up with the examples I need) or perhaps
> they are designed to teach Objective C++ Swarm and have lots of
> extraneous stuff not needed in Java Swarm?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Chris Methot
> 
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-- 
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn
University of Kansas                  Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66045                FAX: (785) 864-5700

                  ==================================
   Swarm-Support is for discussion of the technical details of the day
   to day usage of Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp.
   [un]subscribing), please send a message to <address@hidden>
   with "help" in the body of the message.