Java: Learning to Program with Robots
What is Robots?
- It’s a textbook.
- It’s software.
- It’s a gentle way to teach object-oriented
programming that really is “objects first”.
- It’s an implementation of Rich Pattis’
Karel the Robot.
- It goes way beyond traditional implementations of
Karel by targeting the entire introductory programming course, not just
the first two weeks.
- It’s not just robots! Other examples include
graphics, a credit card, a combination lock, graphing polynomials, input and
output for a game of Connect4, an on-line telephone book, recordkeeping for Big
Brothers/Big Sisters, and using classes from the Java library.
Announcements
- 2006-12-15
- The Instructor's Manual is now complete and available from Course
Technology.
- 2006-06-26
- Updated the library with a few bug fixes and a new user interface to
support lectures in Chapter 07. Updated the configuration file for
Jacobe.
- 2006-02-14
- Java: Learning to Program with Robots has been published by
Course
Technology.
- 2005-12-20
- Improved installation instructions have been added for JCreator,
jGRASP, and Dr. Java.
- 2005-08-23
- The newest versions of the documentation and library have been posted
to the dowload area. The new library requires Java 1.5. The documentation now
includes running demos on the package overview page (the page displayed by
default when looking at the documentation.)
- 2005-08-02
- The newest versions of the documentation and library have been posted
to the dowload area. The new library requires Java 1.5.
- When the book is published by Thomson Course Technology the title
will be revised slightly to Java: Learning to Program with Robots.
- 2005-07-14
- A new version of the book has gone to press for use this Fall. There
are significant changes in anticipation of the publication by Thomson Course
Technology in the new year. If you plan to be using the new material, please
e-mail bwbecker@learningwithrobots.com
for details and an advance peek.
- 2005-06-16
- I am pleased to announce that Robots will be published by
Thomson Course Technology in February,
2006.
- A new PDF of the entire book has been posted in Textbook-->Sample
Chapters. It includes chapters 11 (Quality Software) and 13 (Graphical User
Interfaces) for the first time.
- 2005-04-08
- Posted a new zip file with the JavaDocs. The previous version was
generated by version 1.5 of the javadoc tool. The result doesn't seem to work
with JCreator's help function. These are generated by version 1.4.2 of the
tool.
- 2005-01-17
- Posted a sample chapter covering polymorphism, via both subclassing
and interfaces. Updates to other chapters to include Java 5 collections and
input/output classes and miscellaneous other additions.
- 2004-12-08
- Released a new version of the library, focused mainly on clean-up
issues. See the
change
history for more details. Added a new project, Hangman, in the "xtras"
package. Replaced documentation to clean up odd line-breaks.
- 2004-11-01
- New version of the library to fix a bug in
becker.robots.CompositeIcon.
- 2004-10-18
- New version of the library with various non-critical
enhancements.
- 2004-08-30
- New version of the library to make reading cities from a file more
robust and enhance becker.util.Test.