Java Programming and Software Engineering Fundamentals

A Coursera specialization created by Duke University

---

About This Specialization

Take your first step towards a career in software development with this introduction to Java—one of the most in-demand programming languages and the foundation of the Android operating system. Designed for beginners, this Specialization will teach you core programming concepts and equip you to write programs to solve complex problems. In addition, you will gain the foundational skills a software engineer needs to solve real-world problems, from designing algorithms to testing and debugging your programs.

Centered around projects, this Specialization will help you create a portfolio of work to demonstrate your new programming skills. In the capstone you will create a recommender engine similar to those used by Netflix or Amazon. Additional projects in your portfolio will include:an interactive webpage that applies filters to images, an analysis of CSV data files, an encryption program, and a predictive text generator.

Courses

Programming Foundations with JavaScript, HTML and CSS

About the Course

Learn foundational programming concepts (e.g., functions, for loops, conditional statements) and how to solve problems like a programmer. In addition, learn basic web development as you build web pages using HTML, CSS, JavaScript. By the end of the course, will create a web page where others can upload their images and apply image filters that you create.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

1. Think critically about how to solve a problem using programming;
2. Write JavaScript programs using functions, for loops, and conditional statements;
3. Use HTML to construct a web page with paragraphs, divs, images, links, and lists;
4. Add styles to a web page with CSS IDs and classes; and
5. Make a web page interactive with JavaScript commands like alert, onClick, onChange, adding input features like an image canvas, button, and slider.

Java Programming: Solving Problems with Software

About the Course

Learn to code in Java and improve your programming and problem-solving skills. You will learn to design algorithms as well as develop and debug programs. Using custom open-source classes, you will write programs that access and transform images, websites, and other types of data. At the end of the course you will build a program that determines the popularity of different baby names in the US over time by analyzing comma separated value (CSV) files.

After completing this course you will be able to:

1. Edit, compile, and run a Java program;
2. Use conditionals and loops in a Java program;
3. Use Java API documentation in writing programs.
4. Debug a Java program using the scientific method;
5. Write a Java method to solve a specific problem;
6. Develop a set of test cases as part of developing a program;
7. Create a class with multiple methods that work together to solve a problem; and
8. Use divide-and-conquer design techniques for a program that uses multiple methods.

Java Programming: Arrays, Lists, and Structured Data

About the Course

Build on the software engineering skills you learned in “Java Programming: Solving Problems with Software” by learning new data structures. Use these data structures to build more complex programs that use Java’s object-oriented features. At the end of the course you will write an encryption program and a program to break your encryption algorithm.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

1. Read and write data from/to files;
2. Solve problems involving data files;
3. Perform quantitative analyses of data (e.g., finding maximums, minimums, averages);
4. Store and manipulate data in an array or ArrayList;
5. Combine multiple classes to solve larger problems;
6. Use iterables and collections (including maps) in Java.

Java Programming: Principles of Software Design

About the Course

Solve real world problems with Java using multiple classes. Learn how to create programming solutions that scale using Java interfaces. Recognize that software engineering is more than writing code - it also involves logical thinking and design. By the end of this course you will have written a program that analyzes and sorts earthquake data, and developed a predictive text generator.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

1. Use sorting appropriately in solving problems;
2. Develop classes that implement the Comparable interface;
3. Use timing data to analyze empirical performance;
4. Break problems into multiple classes, each with their own methods;
5. Determine if a class from the Java API can be used in solving a particular problem;
6. Implement programming solutions using multiple approaches and recognize tradeoffs;
7. Use object-oriented concepts including interfaces and abstract classes when developing programs;
8. Appropriately hide implementation decisions so they are not visible in public methods; and
9. Recognize the limitations of algorithms and Java programs in solving problems.
10. Recognize standard Java classes and idioms including exception-handling, static methods, java.net, and java.io packages.

Java Programming: Build a Recommendation System

About the Capstone Project

Ever wonder how Netflix decides what movies to recommend for you? Or how Amazon recommends books? We can get a feel for how it works by building a simplified recommender of our own!

In this capstone, you will show off your problem solving and Java programming skills by creating recommender systems. You will work with data for movies, including ratings, but the principles involved can easily be adapted to books, restaurants, and more. You will write a program to answer questions about the data, including which items should be recommended to a user based on their ratings of several movies. Given input files on users ratings and movie titles, you will be able to:

1. Read in and parse data into lists and maps;
2. Calculate average ratings;
3. Calculate how similar a given rater is to another user based on ratings; and
4. Recommend movies to a given user based on ratings.
5. Display recommended movies for a given user on a webpage.