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COMP1100: Textbooks and Reading

Textbooks

The course textbook for COMP1100 is a choice of one of :

John Lewis and William Lofus. Java Software Solutions. Addison-Wesley, 4th edition, 2005. ISBN 0-321-26979-9.
This is definitely recommended for students with little prior programming experience. It is reasonably friendly and comprehensive. It covers Java in much the same order as we will in COMP1100, covering procedural aspects of the language early on. The majority of example programs are terminal-based (a separate section with GUI-based programs is at the end of each chapter though), which will also make this book easier to follow. It also covers Java 1.5, and will be a useful Java reference book for later CS subjects. Its accompanying CDROM contains Java 1.5 J2SE for 32-bit windows, which may be useful for installation at home. If in doubt, chose this one.
David D. Riley. The Object of Java. Addison-Wesley, 2002. ISBN 0-201-71585-6.
This is recommended for those with significant experience in an object-oriented or procedural language already, and would prefer a text which dealt with software engineering principles more strongly. Note that the treatment of Java is very object-centric. Also the example programs are mainly GUI-based, and it is probably necessary to run them (a CD is provided) in order to understand them fully. It is expected that only the BSEng, BE/BIT and BIT(SD) students would opt for this book. Note that it only covers Java 1.3 (relatively old).

Note that these books also support various topics that will be covered in COMP1110 as well. There are other good Java-based introductory programming books as well. For example, Big Java by Cay Horstmann is a very comprehensive book (as its name suggests!), although arguably a bit less friendly than Lewis&Lofus. It is used by the corresponding course (COMP6701) in the eScience Degree.

Recommended reading for the course is:

Lesley Ann Robertson. Simple Program Design. Nelson Thomson Learning, 3rd edition, 2000. ISBN 0-17-0101835.
This book introduces the ideas of algorithms, structured programming and stepwise refinement in a language-independent way. Note that the textbooks above do not develop these concepts to a similar extent.

These books can be bought from the Co-op bookshop, which is located in concessions area, which is area 17 in quadrant 2 of the campus map.

[COMP1100] [Description] [Lectures] [Tutes/Labs] [Handouts] [Assessment] [Texts] [Java] [Help] [2004 pages]

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