From jacobson@math-cs.cns.uni.edu Wed May  1 17:42:09 2002
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 17:41:47 -0500 (CDT)
From: Mark Jacobson <jacobson@math-cs.cns.uni.edu>
To: 810-053-01@uni.edu
Subject: Extra Credit....

Hi 053 OOP Java students,

You can do either of the links from the URL

    http://www.cns.uni.edu/~jacobson/053/java/class41.html

    and rewrite the session24 and/or session25 Wallingford lecture
    notes we covered.  They are both linked to from that page.
                                ----

    Your rewriting of those notes would not be word for word, but would
    be idea by idea exploration of and written thinking aloud (or recorded
    with pen or pencil thinking) of the terms and concepts and
    definitions.

    You can integrate it with other parts of our course or the supporting
    material in the Budd book.

    You can use the Java examples as occasion to review the Java and OOP
    specifics, as well as the new general concepts.

    You can rewrite code examples, and talk about the code in a way that
    shows you are thinking about it and understanding it.  You can come
    up with a different way to do the same thing, and show the modified
    Java code.

    You could do as I did in class today and invent some new idea, such
    as MOUNTAIN words or VALLEY words or words that start and end with
    the same letter.  You could then write the code and show all the
    places that would be changed to develop and test that new TEMPLATE or
    that new STRATEGY.

    For the students who have been doing VERY BADLY on the quizzes and not
    being able to learn or retain Java very well at all, you are strongly
    encouraged to rewrite the Java code examples and talk about the
    general concepts such as here are the private instance variables, and
    what they do and why they are needed to remember state information,
    and here are the constructors, and here are the public methods
    and private methods and protected methods, and why and so on.

    And here in this code the == was used and the other 5 operators are:

    And here in this code example, the StringTokenizer class was used,
    and what variations on that could be done and what methods were not
    used but that are very common for that class, or how it could have
    been done differently using the same class, or using an array or
    a Vector approach instead, etc. etc.


    Any extra credit you turn in should be written neatly and deliberately
    and scribbled out so fast and illegibly that it is unreadable.
    It can be messy and can have half baked ideas that you come back
    later and develop further or correct, because it is a workbook and
    a thinking/learning exercise.  It is great to take notes and draw
    diagrams and raise questions, leaving enough white space to come back
    a day or a few hours later and reflect further on.  This is an
    excellent way to learn and retain and master information.

    A great approach also is to come back later and use a differently
    colored pen or pencil.  Ideas that are tough can be rewritten again,
    ideally in slightly different phrasing and words, but realistically
    in the same exact language, just to concentrate on and review and
    learn them better the 2nd or the 3rd or the 4th time through.

    You may also do material on the Decorator pattern and the Adapter
    pattern from the following page:

                http://www.cns.uni.edu/~jacobson/053/java/class38.html

    That page has a link to Ghostbusters excerpts, which you can read
    over and try to integrate with the ideas on Inheritance, Polymorphism,
    general/specific and one/many and abstraction that we have been
    talking about.

    So much for the extra credit ideas here.  The extra credit is
    completely optional and not required.

    Mark