Resources

Here are quick links to online resources that you may find valuable in this course.

Website documents

Supplemental material

References

Notes on other online resources

Google search results
Unfortunately, the top results are usually polluted by sites that specialize in “search engine optimization”. Their pages look relevant and engaging, but their content is mostly “fluff”—low on details and certainly not authoritative (not a citable source in a paper). Prefer hits from “oracle.com”—as the maintainers of Java, their API documentation and language specifications are authoritative.
StackOverflow
As a successful implementation of crowdsourcing, the top responses for common questions tend to be accurate, and the debates can be enlightening if you have sufficient background to follow them. But the quality of responses can vary significantly across questions, and the focus is on quick answers, not tutorials. As a result, SO tends to work better as an “expert resource” than an effective learning tool. SO responses are almost never authoritative themselves (exception: personal anecdotes by the people originally involved in the language’s development), but the better ones might cite an authoritative source.
Wikipedia
Content tends to be accurate and well-cited. The level of depth varies considerably between articles, but even thorough articles tend to work better as expert resources than tutorials. As with any encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not citable itself, but it tends to link to relevant references, some of which may be authoritative.
ChatGPT
Chatbot responses are never authoritative, never citable, often difficult to verify, and occasionally flat-out wrong. Additionally, using tools like ChatGPT and CoPilot to generate code for assignments is a violation of academic integrity in this course (remember: the purpose of these assignments is to practice programming; the resulting program isn’t really of value or interest on its own). It may have some use as a study aid, but you must verify your understanding with demo programs and authoritative references.
Books
Books from reputable publishers are fantastic! Their long-form, linear format is well-suited to learning, providing sufficient context to build your understanding on. Don’t worry if it was published a decade ago or more—the material in CS 2110 hasn’t changed much over those years. They may not be able to provide quick answers to specific questions like a search engine or chatbot can, but they will leave you with a broader and deeper understanding of their subject.

How did Dr. Muhlberger learn this material?