Setup Laboratory: Getting your environment working
The Java Eyes laboratory does not involve any programming, but is intended to focus on getting the programming environment set up and working properly. Frequently, the first laboratory period in a programming course preceeds sufficient classroom instruction to go beyond "hello world." Since "hello world" type programs are exactly von Neumann serial programming this curriculum strives to avoid emphasizing, we reccomend Java Eyes instead. Besides, googly eyes are much cooler than print statements any day.
The student source jar should be unpacked for this exercise, you may or may not wish to have the students perform this step (and thus learn about the jar utility). It is quite intentional that the code in the "student" jar is incomplete. It won't compile without the cs101 utility classes. In order to run the program from source you must learn how to supply our library on compile time and runtime classpath in your IDE (or on the commandline if you choose to work that way). On the way to this knowledge students will likely learn other wonderful tricks like how to log in and where to find the materials for the day's laboratory. Once the code compiles and runs, students can break the code and see what a compile time error message looks like, how to read it (and make sure it contains line numbers! if it doesn't your IDE needs to have it's compiler settings adjusted, or the student has tweaked things they shouldn't have. Optimized is not better!)
Disclaimer: The handout provided herin is directed at the specific seetup used by Lynn at MIT when it was written. It is unlikely that it will describe your setup, and you will need to write your own version. (This is true with many of our handouts).
- View Handout
- Browse Javadoc
- Usage notes
- Screen shots
- Executable jar
- Full Source jar
- Student Source jar
- To quickly see it run click here (Java WebStart)
- Report bugs
Running the Program
The exercise is to get it compiled and running so the instructions below are only for viewing the demo.
1. Click here OR 2. Download the executable jar and run the command: java -jar javaeyes.jar
Usage Notes
- One could use this exercise to learn all the sun utilities, including jar, and javadoc, or the related facilities in the IDE.
- Compiling multiple packages can be somewhat trickier than just a single file. The source download of the cs101 jar can be used to practice or test more complex compilations.
Screen Shot
This is what the program should look like when you get it running:
