The book has a very clear identity.

It takes a truly objects first approach to teaching problem solving using Java. These are complicated concepts so the book uses the development environment BlueJ to help the student's understanding. BlueJ has a strong emphasis on visualization and interaction techniques, and allows the students to manipulate objects and call methods as a first exercise. BlueJ is free and freely available, and has been developed specifically for teaching.

The book is loaded with projects so that the student can really get a grip on actually solving problems; and it takes a "spiral approach", introducing a topic in a simple context early on, then revisiting it later in the book to deepen understanding. It also comes with a CD containing JDK, BlueJ, a BlueJ tutorial and code for all the projects. The website contains style guide for all examples, PowerPoints for lecturers and also a Solutions Manual.

• Part 1 Foundations of object orientation
  • Objects and classes
  • Understanding class definitions
  • Object interaction
  • Grouping objects
  • More sophisticated behavior
  • Well-behaved objects
  • Designing classes
• Part 2 Application structures
  • Improving structure with inheritance
  • More about inheritance
  • Further abstraction techniques
  • Building graphical user interfaces
  • Handling errors
  • Designing applications
  • A case study

• A Working with a BlueJ project
• B Java data types
• C Java control structures
• D Operators
• E Running Java without BlueJ
• F Configuring BlueJ
• G Using the debugger
• H JUnit unit-testing tools
• I Javadoc
• J Program style guide
• K Important library classes