Fundamentals of Computer Programming Course

This hands-on course provides a comprehensive introduction to programming, and builds a solid foundation of programming skills that can be used to master additional programming languages like C, C++, or Java. In this course you will write, compile, and debug programs in Java.

Audience: Web developers, system administrators, technical managers, and anyone wanting to develop programming skills.

No programming experience is required.

Topics covered on the 5 day Fundamentals of Computer Programming course

BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

• What is a Program?
• "Hello, world!"
• The Programming Process
• Program Files and Program Execution
• System Programs vs. Application Programs
• Input - Process - Output
• Programming Languages
• Compiler Errors vs. Runtime Errors
• Development Environments

WRITING SIMPLE PROGRAMS

• Reading Input
• Performing Numeric Calculations
• Formatting Output
• Decision Making
• Iteration
• Commenting Your Source Code
• Good Programming Style

DATA TYPES, CONSTANTS, AND VARIABLES

• A Program's Purpose is to Process Data
• Computer Memory
• Data Can Be of Different Types
• Named Data: Variables
• Literal Data
• Assignment
• Printing Variables

SCREEN OUTPUT AND KEYBOARD INPUT

• Writing to the Screen
• Characters That Have Special Meaning
• Some Simple Formatting
• Reading from the Keyboard
• Prompting and Validating

EXPRESSIONS

• Expressions: Where the Work Gets Done
• Expression Evaluation: The Result
• Arithmetic Expressions
• Relational Expressions
• Where are Relational Expressions Used?
• And? . . . Or?
• Precedence and Associativity

DECISION MAKING

• Sequential Execution
• What is Decision Making?
• Simple Decisions: if
• Two-Way Decisions: else
• Code Blocks
• Nesting Control Statements
• Multi-Way Decisions: switch

LOOPING

• Kinds of Loops
• Iterative Loops
• Code Blocks and Loops
• Nested Loops
• Conditional Loops
• Infinite Loops

SUBROUTINES

• Programming Without Subroutines
• Reusable Code in a Subroutine
• The Starting Point
• Variable Visibility: Scope
• Parameters
• Returning a Value
• Method Stubs
• Libraries

DEBUGGING

• What is Debugging?
• Commenting Out Code
• Simple Debugging with Print Statements
• Making Debugging Print Statements Conditional
• Programs that Help You Debug Programs

DATA COLLECTIONS - ARRAYS

• Scalar Data vs. Data Collections
• What is an Array?
• Accessing Array Elements
• Multidimensional Arrays
• Array Initialization

DATA COLLECTIONS - CLASSES

• What is a Class?
• Object vs. Class
• Accessing Object Members
• Using Arrays with Classes

WORKING WITH FILES

• Terminal I/O and File I/O
• Opening Files
• Opening a File for Writing
• Opening a File for Reading
• Checking for File Open Errors
• Closing a File
• Text Files vs. Binary Files