Course Meetings
6.092 is a week-long (Monday through Friday) course, meeting three hours each day. A second week of additional lab and project work is also offered, but optional.
Course Description
Students who complete 6.092 will learn Java™ fundamentals in preparation for taking 6.170 in the Spring. We'll cover the Java™ language plus libraries and concepts useful to 6.170. Each of the five sessions consist of two hours of lecture and one hour of assisted lab work. Daily assignments are designed to take one hour, and can be turned in at the end of lab or before 6 PM, when solutions will be provided.
A second week, which was optional, consisted of daily two hour lab sessions in which students worked on a single final project (instant message client that interfaces with AOL® AIMTM messaging software). During this week, there were no lectures, and the final project was not graded; however the two hours were staffed by lab assistants to answer questions and provide feedback.
Assignments
Since the class is focused on preparing students for 6.170, the assignments given during the course were modified from 6.170 assignments while still concentrating on important concepts.
Recommended Reading
Flanagan, David. Java™ in a Nutshell. 5th ed. Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly, 2005. ISBN: 0596007736.
Flanagan, David, and Brett McLaughlin. Java™ 1.5 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook. Cambridge, MA: O'Reilly, 2004. ISBN: 0596007388.
Grading
This was a P/D/F course and was graded on a three-part scale: check, check-plus, check-plus-plus. The top grade, signifying excellent JavaTM programming, abbreviates to C++, another programming language (which is no coincidence). Everyone who participated in all 4 labs passed the course.