What's Going On? September 29th through October 3rd

Variables and Objects

Last week we finished up our unit on the basics of Java programming.  Students were introduced to some of the basic principles of Java programming.  We talked about the different types of errors we may encounter as we learn to program and we learned about the basic structure of a Java application.

So far we've only been able to write very simple programs that print out a couple of lines of text.  In this next unit we'll start to use different variables and objects in order to make our programs more interactive.  This week we'll start working with four different primitive data types:

• int: a variable to hold a whole number
• double: a variable to hold a decimal number
• char: a variable to hold a single character
• boolean: a variable to hold a true/false value

We will become familiar with some basic arithmetic operations and practice the order of operations that our Java applications will follow.  In addition to creating our own variables, we'll also be able to get input from our program's user by using the "Scanner" object.