Course Outline

This is a course for social and ecological scientists (and anyone else) who fancy learning how to program. It teaches basic Java (see: Why Java) along with a few elements of core programming culture and a few interesting programming examples from these sciences.

The following sections show you how the course holds together.

The first half of the course will take you through the core language. The second half looks at using this, along with code supplied by other people, to get specific jobs done.

The core language:

  1. Introduction: how Java works
  2. Basic data storage: variables and operators, primitives and objects
  3. Flow control: branching + loops
  4. Flow control: methods
  5. Using other people's code: inheritance
  6. Using other people's code: imports and packages

Using Java:

  1. Key packages: reading and writing files [highlighted slides (purple text)]
  2. Key packages: making windows programs
  3. Key packages: making images and drawing
  4. Programming for real
  1. [Key Concepts]
  2. [Key Concepts]
  3. [Key Concepts]
  4. [Key Concepts]
  5. [Key Concepts]
  6. [Key Concepts]

 

 

  1. [Key Concepts]
  2. [Key Concepts]
  3. [Key Concepts]

In addition there are practicals for the hacking days that include useful generic information on:

  1. Using IDEs
  2. Using GitHub