Some Hints for the First Quiz

Hi everybody,

Hope you are enjoying your three-day weekend.  I'm not sure that I can remember a nicer Labor Day outside than today.

As I mentioned in class at the end of the week last week, tomorrow (Tuesday) you'll take your first quiz of the year.  To prepare for this quiz, you'll want to have read Chapters 1 and 2 of the textbook completely, and be familiar with each of the concepts presented therein.

Remember that whenever you hear me ask for you to read a chapter in the text, I'm not just asking for you to glance through the sections.  In computer science, reading a text involves more than just merely familiarizing yourself with terminology in a given chapter.  Instead, if you really want to master this material, I suggest that you run each of the example programs that go with the chapters AS you read the book.  That'll give you the experience of being able to see firsthand what a given line or block of code does.

Here are a few other suggestions for the quiz tomorrow that I think will be of benefit to you:

1.)  Be prepared to know what a syntax error is and another way of referring to a syntax error.  (Hint:  What specifically detects syntax errors, and what informs you when you have a syntax error embedded in your code?)

2.)  Be prepared to articulate what common features belong to generally all Java applications (e.g. "public class Foo", "public static void main(String[] args)", semicolons at the end of each line of executable code, etc.)

3.)  Be prepared to know multiple ways for how to write comments into your code.

4.)  Be prepared to know multiple ways for how to declare AND initialize a variable (such as an int or a double).  You'll want to make sure you've read Chapter 2 to fully be able to grasp this one.

5.)  Be prepared to know the file extension types for source code files (.java) and bytecode files (.class), and know the different purposes for each type of file.

6.)  Finally, be prepared to articulate the distinction between a BlueJ project and just a regular folder.  It is possible to convert any folder into a BlueJ project by opening that folder using the "Non-BlueJ Project" feature.  Most significantly, this allows you to open up the folders within which the example textbook files are contained.  This also allows you to get at the contents of .zip files from within BlueJ. 

The way this works is that BlueJ adds a single .bluej file into the folder so that it is recognizable as a BlueJ project at any other point you decide to access it from within BlueJ.  This feature also allows you to open up the project automatically simply by clicking on the .bluej file (it'll usually be named "package" when you look it up).

Hope this helps you do well on the quiz tomorrow.

See everybody then.

Mr. Svetlik