Product Description

This title is now available in a new edition, available August 2008. ISBN 9780137005628

The book has a very clear identity.

It takes a truly objects first approach to teaching problem solving using Java. These are complicated concepts so the book uses the development environment BlueJ to help the student’s understanding. BlueJ has a strong emphasis on visualization and interaction techniques, and allows the students to manipulate objects and call methods as a first exercise. BlueJ is free and freely available, and has been developed specifically for teaching.

The book is loaded with projects so that the student can really get a grip on actually solving problems; and it takes a “spiral approach”, introducing a topic in a simple context early on, then revisiting it later in the book to deepen understanding. It also comes with a CD containing JDK, BlueJ, a BlueJ tutorial and code for all the projects. The website contains style guide for all examples, PowerPoints for lecturers and also a Solutions Manual. 

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #160001 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 520 pages

From the Back Cover

Objects First with Java:
A Practical Introduction Using BlueJ

Third Edition

David J. Barnes
Michael Kölling

The BlueJ revolution goes on! The third edition of Objects First with Java has been fully updated for Java 5.0, and features a new version of BlueJ providing even stronger support for learning Java syntax and semantics.

Hallmark features

• An ‘Objects First’ approach encourages students to exploit the power of OOP from the beginning
• A project-driven approach applies a problem-solving method to real applications.
• A CD-ROM containing the JDK and versions of BlueJ for a variety of operating systems
• A Companion Website at www.pearsoned.co.uk/barnes includes a style guide for all program examples, PowerPoint slides and other resources for both students and instructors.
• Additional resources can be found on the BlueJ website: www.bluej.org/objects-first/

New to the third edition

• Fully compliant with Java 5.0 features including generics
• A revised treatment of autobox and enumerators
• Expanded coverage of graphics and GUI programming
• A new version of the BlueJ environment, featuring:
  o Full support for Java 5.0
  o An all-new interface ‘look and feel’
  o A new ‘Code Pad’ feature, allowing immediate execution and evaluation of Java code.

About the Authors

David Barnes has 25 years experience in teaching programming. He and Michael Kölling both teach introductory Java courses at the Universityof Kent, Canterbury. Michael Kölling was a key member of the team that developed BlueJ at MonashUniversityin Australia.

 

[Copy to appear on inside front cover of 3rd edition]

From reviews of the original edition

“The book represents a valuable, new approach to introductory programming; it is still my best choice as textbook for the introductory programming course.”
—Michael Caspersen, University of Aarhus, Denmark

“This is the most innovative approach to teaching an Introduction to Programming course I have seen so far.”
—Clemens Martin, University of Ontario

“I would like to thank the authors for their good job on this book, and the wonderful BlueJ, the best programming environment for students learning Java.”
—Ying Zhou, Rhode Island College

 

The first true ‘objects first’ introductory text; the best introduction to objects and OO programming concepts I have ever seen.”

—Michael Goldweber, XavierUniversity

 

“The more I read Barnes and Kölling’s book, the more impressed I am with it. It is a pedagogical masterpiece.”

—Ian Bridgewood, CopenhagenUniversityCollegeof Engineering

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Customer Reviews

A fascinating and clever approach to teaching Java
This book is intended to be a course text book for an introductory course in Java and Object Oriented Programming. The authors have made a conscious decision to cover the material in a different order to almost all other books on the subject. You won't find an initial chapter on classpaths, compilation and the main method, there's no pseudo-procedural "hello, world" example. The book leaps straight in to creating objects from classes, examining values and calling methods.

There is a trick to all this, of course. The book is based on a kind of Java development environment optimised for teaching called "BlueJ". BlueJ is a free download, and a copy is included on a CD with the book, along with all the source code examples. I've had a play with BlueJ, and it certainly makes important things like the distinction between a class and an object, and the inheritance structure of the code, much clearer than traditional IDEs.

If you are planning to teach a course on Java or OO, you should certainly take a look at this book. Even if you don't run the course exactly as presented, the approach is fascinating. If you are trying to pick up these tricky ideas on your own, this book might also be very useful. Even if none of those cases apply, the BlueJ software is still a really neat tool for prototyping.

Outstanding!
This book is great for really learning OOP deeply, and not just some superficial Java syntax. It takes you step by step through interesting projects - explaining every step, and gettign you to build more and more interesting applications.

There are good exercises to try and apply the concepts that you learned yourself, and at the end you feel you have really learned the concepts, and not just where to put the semicolons.

Fantastic book!

Get this book
I have looked at BlueJ for some time now, but wasn't quite sure just how to integrate it with course I am teaching.

Then last week I received a copy of "Objects First With Java". It just so happens that I am pulling a class of students through polymorphism using Java for the first time. It is really, really painful.

Then yesterday I received a copy of the BlueJ text. I whizzed through chapter 1 and peeked ahead through the rest of the text. My first impression is that this may be the best pedagically developed environment for learning programming that I have ever seen. It is so very, very ... simple!! I feel like I've been swimming in a lake of murky water and entangling weeds for years in teaching OOP with Borland's Object Pascal, then Borland and CodeWarrior C++, and most recently JCreator's Java IDE.

BlueJ has turned my murky lake of OOP into a fun, refreshing dip.

We currently use the same text that we have used for years, because we know just where to use the text and where to supplement and how. But now I just know that we must reconsider. The BlueJ text may triple the number of students that goes in into our advanced streams.

Sorry, but every now and then in life something is so incredibly better than anything in that particular arena that it is immediately obvious that a new standard has emerged. I am absolutely convinced that BlueJ together with the Barnes and Kolling text does that for introducing OOP particularly and Java generally. That much really is obvious.