CLASSES

Each week of COMP229 has three hours of lectures and a two-hour mixed class (i.e., two hour combined tutorial and practical).  The Mixed classes commence in Week 2 and are held in the E6A 121 Computer Laboratory.

REQUIRED AND RECOMMENDED TEXTS AND/OR MATERIALS

The required text for the unit is:

• Head First Design Patterns by Eric T Freeman, Elisabeth Robson, Bert Bates and Kathy Sierra, O'Rielly Media, October 2004 (ISBN:978-0-596-00712-6)

Note that this text book was introduced for the 2011 offering of COMP229, so you may be able to purchase a second hand copy from a former COMP229 student. Failing that, you will be able to purchase a copy from the University COOP Bookshop or from your favorite online purveyor of fine literary works. 

You will find the lecture material much easier to understand if you read the text and lecture notes in advance of the lectures. Lecture notes (or slides), information about which chapters to read in the text book and any other relevant preparatory readings will be provided for you on the iLearn site (http://ilearn.mq.edu.au) for COMP229 a couple days prior to each lecture.

The Macquarie library contains many books on object-oriented programming in general, and on programming specifically in Java, that you may want to use to supplement the text and lecture notes.

One particularly useful service that the library provides you with is access to many Java related titles online via the Safari Books Online (http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/) service. Using this service, which you can only access from a machine connected to the University network, you might like to have a look at the following Java titles:

1. Learning Java, 3rd Edition by Jonathan Knudsen; Patrick Niemeyer, ISBN: 978-0-596-00873-4
2. Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition by David Flanagan, ISBN: 978-0-596-00773-7
3. Java Examples in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition by David Flanagan, ISBN: 978-0-596-00620-4 The web itself is an ideal source of Java information, and from time to time we will be posting useful links on the COMP229 iLeran site. Two particularly useful resources are:
4. Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel, a free version of the 3rd edition of this pretty comprehensive book is available for download from http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/ and its 4th edition, which is updated for use with Java 5 and 6, is available for $25 from http://mindview.net/Books/TIJ4.
5. The official Java Tutorial http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/ which is a comprehensive resource providing trails covering topics ranging from the basics of Java programming to more advanced subjects like GUI development, Generics, Class Reflection, Sound, Graphics, Network Programming and Concurrency

UNIT WEBPAGE AND TECHNOLOGY USED AND REQUIRED

Online Resources

COMP229 will make extensive use of the iLearn system for delivery of class materials, discussion boards, real time chat, submission of work and access to marks and feedback. Students should check the iLearn site (http://ilearn.mq.edu.au) regularly for unit updates.

Questions and general queries regarding the content of this unit, its tutorials or practicals should be posted to the appropriate discussion board on the COMP229 iLearn site. In particular, any questions which are of interest to all students in this unit should be posted to one of these discussion boards, so that everyone can benefit from the answers.

Echo360

Audio and screen video recordings of the lectures will be made available online via Echo360. A link to these recordings will be provided on the iLearn site for this unit

Technology Used and Required

The practical work in this unit involves programming in Java (www.java.com) using the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (www.eclipse.org). We will also be using a distributed version control system called Mercurial (http://mercurial.selenic.com) to access shared code repositories hosted on the BitBucket website (http://bitbucket.org).

This software is already installed for you in the 200 level computing labs, on the ground floor of building E6A.

Tools and libraries to support debugging, automated testing, GUI development and so forth will be introduced and used as the semester progresses. When that occurs you will be provided with full instructions in lectures on how to install and use each one.

COMP229 will be graded according to the following general descriptions of the letter grades as specified by Macquarie University.

•   High Distinction (HD, 85-100): provides consistent evidence of deep and critical understanding in relation to the learning outcomes. There is substantial originality and insight in identifying, generating and communicating competing arguments, perspectives or problem solving approaches; critical evaluation of problems, their solutions and their implications; creativity in application.

•   Distinction (D, 75-84): provides evidence of integration and evaluation of critical ideas, principles and theories, distinctive insight and ability in applying relevant skills and concepts in relation to learning outcomes. There is demonstration of frequent originality in defining and analysing issues or problems and providing solutions; and the use of means of communication appropriate to the discipline and the audience.

•   Credit (Cr, 65-74): provides evidence of learning that goes beyond replication of content knowledge or skills relevant to the learning outcomes. There is demonstration of substantial understanding of fundamental concepts in the field of study and the ability to apply these concepts in a variety of contexts; plus communication of ideas fluently and clearly in terms of the conventions of the discipline.

•   Pass (P, 50-64): provides sufficient evidence of the achievement of learning outcomes. There is demonstration of understanding and application of fundamental concepts of the field of study; and communication of information and ideas adequately in terms of the conventions of the discipline. The learning attainment is considered satisfactory or adequate or competent or capable in relation to the specified outcomes.

•   Fail (F, 0-49): does not provide evidence of attainment of all learning outcomes. There is missing or partial or superficial or faulty understanding and application of the fundamental concepts in the field of study; and incomplete, confusing or lacking communication of ideas in ways that give little attention to the conventions of the discipline.

Please note that, since the beginning 2011, Macquarie University no longer awards Conceded Pass (PC) grades in its units.

The standards of achievement that will be used to assess each of the assessment tasks with respect to the letter grades are as follows. Where applicable, more specific versions of these standards will be provided with the assessment task descriptions.

Learning Outcome 1: Understand the key concepts of object oriented programming, and program proficiently in an OO programming language

Learning Outcome 2: Have an ability to use application libraries, in this case the Java SE APII; 

Learning Outcome 3: Be familiar with good programming practices such as testing, debugging, documentation and version control;

Learning Outcome 5: Ability to apply key OO concepts and libraries to develop GUI applications;

Learning Outcome 4: Understanding of the concepts underlying design patterns and a working knowledge of a number of well known design patterns (singleton, observer, factory, iterator, decorator etc);

Learning Outcome 6: Ability to apply key OO concepts and libraries to concurrent applications;

These assessment standards will be used to give a numeric mark to each assessment submission during marking. The mark will correspond to a letter grade for that task according to the University guidelines. The final raw mark for the unit will be calculated by combining the marks for all assessment tasks according to the percentage weightings shown in the assessment summary above.

Completing the unit satisfactorily requires you to achieve a P grade (50% or more) for your raw mark.

On occasion your raw mark for the unit may not be the same as the Standardised Numeric Grade (SNG) which you receive as the final result. Under the Senate guidelines, raw marks may be scaled to ensure that there is a degree of comparability across the university, so that units with the same past performances of their students should achieve similar results.

This unit requires:

• Experience writing programs in the Java programming language. In particular, we will assume that you are familar with all of the basic features of Java, including the use of strings, arrays, loops, control structures (such as if statements) and methods.
• Experience using the Eclipse IDE http://www.eclipse.org to develop simple Java applications.

We have moved from take-home exams to in-class module exams.