AP Computer Science A: Java Programming Classes and Objects

Unit Name or Timeframe: Methods and Classes (3 weeks)

• Object-oriented design and encapsulation
• Top-down development and functional decomposition
• State and behavior
• Fields and visibility
• Methods and parameters
• Calling methods and passing parameters by-value and by-reference
• Constructors and instantiation
• The static keyword
• Scope
• Method overloading
• Encapsulation
• Accessors and mutators
• Immutable objects

Unit Name or Timeframe: Interfaces (1 week)

• Interfaces and abstraction
• Interface implementation
• Reference types
• List interface and iterators
• Comparable interface

Unit Name or Timeframe: Inheritance (2 weeks)

• Inheritance and the Object class
• Public and private data and methods
• The super, this and null references
• Encapsulation and information hiding
• Inheritance using extends, recognizing single-inheritance
• Equality vs identity
• has-a vs is-a relationships involving inheritance and aggregation
• Method overriding
• The instanceof operator