1. Find information on a web page
2. Write a program
3. Send email
4. Post to a newsgroup
5. FTP your program to turn it in electronically

Note that if you're reading this handout on a printed page, rather than online, you'll frequently see underlined words. These are hyperlinks that, when viewed online, can take you to pages with more information.

The programs we'll be using in lab to access the Internet are supplied through Bear Access, a suite of programs that Cornell makes available. In Upson B7, you can start Bear Access by using the Start menu: Start->Programs->Bear Access->Bear Access via Runway. Bear Access supplies Netscape Communicator for a web browser, Eudora for email, and WinVN as a news reader.

1. Use a web browser to go to the course website. The course website can be found at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs99/2000su. Find the handout page for this lab. Follow this link to find the secret phrase. Make note of it -- you'll need it in Part II.

Creating the Project

Don't forget that when you're done working for the day, you'll need to copy your project to a disk, and then logout of the machine you are working on (Start->Logout).

Your First Program

/**
 * CS99 Lab 1
 * Author: your name here
 * NetID: your NetID here
 * Date: today's date
 */
class Lab1 {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, world!");
    }
}

Absolutely everything is important -- the spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc. Now try to run your program. You can do this by doing any of the following:

• Clicking the arrow on the Project window (4th icon to the right of "Java Application", turns green when you hover the mouse over it
• Going to the Project menu and choosing Run
• Pressing F5

If all goes well, you'll soon see a message on the screen saying "Hello, world!". Congratulations! You've written your first Java program. If not, you have your first bug to fix. The compiler will show you a list of errors. You can click on each error in the list, and it will take you to the statement in the program that the error is in. Try to figure out what you did wrong, correct it, and then try running the program again.

By the way, println is a method that prints a message to the screen. Its name stands for "print line". It is a method that belongs to the System.out object. We'll talk more about objects later. 

Your Second Method

class Cat {

    static void scratch() {
        ...
    }
          
    static void sleep() {
        ...
    }

    ...

}

Here's how to write our new method:

1. First, you'll need to write the signature for the method. This is the first line of the method, and for now may contain some keywords that don't make a lot of sense. We'll eventually learn what they all mean in this course. Here's the signature for our new method, which we'll call printHello: 
       static void printHello()
2. Now, write the body of printHello. Don't forget the braces around it. 
3. Finally, we'll change main to call printHello. Calling a method means transferring control to it. To do this, change main to: 
       public static void main(String[] args) {
           printHello();
       }

public static void main(String[] args) {
    printHello();
    printHello();
    printHello();
}

The Real Program (for this lab)

Write a new method, called printInitials, that prints your initials to the screen. It should look something like this:

M   M  RRR    CCC
MM MM  R  R  C
M M M  RRR   C
M   M  R R   C
M   M  R  R   CCC

Also, write another new method called printSecretPhrase. It should print to the screen the secret phrase that you found on the course website in Part I.

Now rewrite your main method to make calls to printHello and printInitials so that you get output like the following: 

 

Hello, world! M   M  RRR    CCC MM MM  R  R  C M M M  RRR   C <----- These should be your own initials, not MRC M   M  R R   C M   M  R  R   CCC the secret phrase Hello, world!

That's a hello, a blank line, your initials, a blank line, the secret phrase, a blank line, and another hello. The blank lines can be produced with the following call to println:

System.out.println();

The program will be graded on these criteria:

• Style
  • Correct indentation
  • Consistent brace placement
  • Comment at beginning of class
• Correct output, as above
• Methods
  • Correct division of output
  • Correct signatures

1. Send email to the course staff. The address is cs99@cs.cornell.edu. Use this subject: 
       "CS99: Lab 1 Roll Call" 
   (don't include the quotes). Include your name in the body of the message. If you've never sent email using your Cornell address, you'll want to make a Eudora floppy first. See the lab consultant in B7 if you don't know how to do this.
2. Post to the course newsgroup. You can find news readers in Bear Access. The course newsgroup is cornell.class.cs099. You'll find a post in it with a subject of "Lab 1 Roll Call". Post a response to that message that includes your name. Since many people may not have posted to newsgroups, there is a separate set of instructions for this.

Important change: we will not be using FTP to turn in labs for the first week. You will turn them in on floppy disk, as described on the instruction page linked above. This is a result of extraordinary number of people in the class, 30 of whom do not yet have FTP accounts.

Files to submit:

• Lab1.java
• Lab1.mcp