Java Core Concepts and Algorithms

This unit expands foundational Java skills to cover object-oriented design, collections, common algorithms, concurrency, and basic GUI/event-driven programming. Students will apply language features, standard APIs, and tooling to build, test, and document robust Java programs while measuring and comparing performance.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and compare the time and space complexity of common search and sort algorithms (e.g., linear search, quicksort) and quantify algorithm performance using empirical measurements and benchmarking techniques
• Apply object-oriented and language features by creating and documenting Java classes that use generics, HashMap and other collections, getters/setters, static members, method overriding, interfaces (including anonymous inner classes), and appropriate use of equals
• Demonstrate proficiency with concurrency, functional programming, and event-driven development by creating and managing threads, implementing functional interfaces and lambdas, and building basic JavaFX user interfaces that handle events and use layouts and observable lists
• Evaluate program correctness and robustness by using exception handling, input validation (including regular expressions), numeric precision classes (BigDecimal), date-time APIs, and Java tooling (compilation and command-line tools) to build, test, and document applications