<p>Hey guys. I am hoping that someone out there can help me! I am currently enrolled in AP Comp Sci A and it just doesn't make any sense to me. The first few days or so went great. I really enjoyed the decimal, binary, octal, hexadecimal conversions lol. But we started to write these programs onto the comp, and there's just so many tiny details involved! I can't seem to consolidate the information. Also, my teacher doesn't give us textbooks or notes, so I don't have those sources either. I haven't taken any previous programming classes either, which adds to my woes (but the prerequisite is just precalc, which i completed successfully last year)</p>
<p>So my question is if anyone has really good textbook suggestions for real beginner. And when I say beginner, I mean beginner! lol I saw an old copy of Absolute Java in my public library and I read some good reviews of it on Amazon. Any one have positive experiences with it?</p>
<p>AP Computer Science is basically a logical language.</p>
<p>Its like math but you use more words/Functions.
Its like language but you use logic.</p>
<p>So a good way to learn it would be to understand the basics, forming of classes/functions ects(Like Verbs/Sentences)</p>
<p>Don’t try to memorize this class, it will get you nowhere because you will just be developing your memory which would kill you in the Timed AP Test. So you need to fully understand the logic and methods without rote memorizing.</p>
<p>What I did was practice programming on my computer Java Applications. You could really use any Java Book as long as its not a high Design/GUI book.</p>
<p>Good Luck, and if you finished precalc you probably are already good at understanding. Trust me when I started programming those ‘tiny’ details killed me. But as I kept working on it my skills increased tremendously.</p>
<p>Java is really quite easy once you know how it works. Like Columbian said, it is similar to a foreign language. I would suggest getting a book and writing basic programs.</p>
<p>Honestly, when it comes to computer science, practice is the key.
Similar to math/physics, just looking at the sample problems and understanding them is not enough, you gotta get your hands dirty.</p>
<p>look for a guy named thenewboston on youtube. he’s crazy good on programming tutorials.
i recommend using a book called Teach Yourself Java - Obrien and Schildt. I used that to teach myself java last year.</p>