CS351: Web Resources

This is a miscellaneous collection of links that you may or may not find useful for this class.

Local FAQs, notes, and other docs

• Seth Thompson's (CS351, S'05) Eclipse+CVS+Windows FAQ: directions on how to configure CVSNT on Windows and how to tell Eclipse to play nice with it.

Langauge and tool specs/docs

• The official Java API for the 1.4.2 Javasoft release. Read it. Use it. Know it. Breathe it. Live it.
• The API for Java 1.5.0. We'll use this more in the later parts of the class.
• Errata for the class text (Core Java: Vol. 1- Fundamentals, 7th ed.) Yes, even the Language Masters make mistakes sometimes.
• Creating a GUI with JFC/Swing: The JavaSoft tutorial on putting together applications with Swing components. A great starting place if you're dying to do GUI development.
• Object Serialization The complete documentation on the Java serialization mechanism. This is pretty heavyweight documentation -- I would start with the section in your textbook for basic understanding. Only venture here if you need the very detailed story.
• Writing doc comments for javadoc. This page is a guide on how to write doc comments, focusing on issues like content, style, and the syntax of javadoc comments.
• The Javadoc tool documentation. Unlike the previous link, this page is a technical manual on how to use the javadoc tool to compile your doc comments into HTML documentation pages. It does also have a reference section on acceptable tags, though.
• Using hprof to Tune Performance. A Sun/Javasoft article about the -Xrunhprof option to the java interpreter. Only really scratches the surface of what hprof can do, but gives enough info to get you started.
• The HPROF Profiler Agent The closest thing to documentation on hprof that I could find. Still too sparse, but gives some sense of what it's about.
• PerfAnal: A Performance Analysis Tool This is a (very, very) basic profiling/performance analysis tool layered on top of hprof. It makes interpreting hprof output much easier, but it should in no way be mistaken for a professional grade tool. Pay special attention to the caveats (JVM and hprof dependencies) described at the bottom of the page.

Emacs, the One True Editor

• The Emacs Wiki. Lots of miscellaneous useful information.
• Information on customizing Emacs via Emacs init file (aka dotfile).

Useful support code, libraries, and other miscellany

• The GNU Java Getopt port (local copy; the original can be found here). JavaDoc documentation for the Getopt library.
• CVS for Dummies Sadly, this page doesn't really apply to anybody in this course, b/c I haven't seen any dummies here, but it may have some gems of insight for you nonetheless.
• Implementation notes on A* A nice page that describes some of the design decisions behind selecting the right OPEN and CLOSED data structs for A*.

Math and other insights

• The CLR text on Algroithms, as well as a number of other great CS resource books, can be found on the UNM Library Electronic Books page. (Click on "Books24x7 ITPro Library Collection"). CogNet also has some great resouces here.
• The NIST Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures. Great concise reference to a myriad of useful data structures and algorithms (trees and tries, hash tables, graph search algorithms, and many more).