Learning Java Through Games

Learning Java Through Games teaches students how to use the different features of the Java language as well as how to program. Suitable for self-study or as part of a two-course introduction to programming, the book covers as much material as possible from the latest Java standard while requiring no previous programming experience.

Taking an application-motivated approach, the text presents an abundance of games. Students must read through the whole chapter to understand all the features that are needed to implement the game. Most chapters start with a description of a game and then introduce different Java constructs for implementing the features of the game on need-to-use bases.

The text teaches students not only how to write code that works but also how to follow good software practices. All sample programs in the text strive to achieve low cohesion and high coupling—the hallmarks of well-designed code. Many programs are refactored multiple times to achieve code that is easy to understand, reuse, and maintain.

The first part of the book covers basic programming techniques, such as conditional statements, loops, methods, arrays, and classes. The second part focuses on more advanced topics, including class inheritance, recursions, sorting algorithms, GUI programming, exception handling, files, and applets.

Table of Contents

Part I: Basic Principles
Chapter 1: Computer Hardware and Software
Chapter 2: Data Types and Conditional Statements
Chapter 3: Loops
Chapter 4: Methods and Formatted Output
Chapter 5: Introduction to Arrays
Chapter 6: Introduction to Classes
Chapter 7: The ArrayList Class and the enum Keyword
Part II: Advanced Programming Techniques
Chapter 8: Classes Revisited
Chapter 9: Fun with Swing
Chapter 10: Nested Classes and Event Handling
Chapter 11: The Breakout Game (Complete Version)
Chapter 12: Layout Management and GUI Components
Chapter 13: Exception Handling and Files
Chapter 14: Recursion
Chapter 15: Java Applets