Our required textbook for CSE 142 this quarter will be the following:
Reges/Stepp. Building Java Programs: A Back to Basics Approach, 2nd edition. ISBN 0-13-609181-4
This required book was written specifically for this course and makes a valuable supplement to the lecture presentations. The book contains the problems we will assign you each week before your discussion section. Also, exams in this course will be open-book, so it may be advantageous to own the book for use as a reference during exams.
The textbook includes many sample programs. You can access a full set of code files that is organized chapter by chapter. This will allow you to download any of the programs and run them on your own computer.
New copies of the textbook come with an access code to watch "Video Notes." These videos supplement the lecture and book material by walking through more examples in detail. You can access the video notes at the Pearson VideoNotes web site.
We have written a web application called Practice-It that allows you to write solutions to lots of our Java practice problems. You can type in your solution and submit it to the server to be tested. You will receive feedback about whether your code succeeds or fails.
Physical copy: Students can purchase the textbook from the UW Bookstore. The book is also available to be ordered online from online retailers such as the following:
Digital copy: For a reduced cost, students can buy the textbook online from Pearson Publishing's "CourseSmart" web system at the following address:
The book may also be available on course reserve at the UW Engineering Library and Odegaard (see where it is currently available). If the book is not available on reserve, please contact the instructor.
If you see a book with our book's title but a different ISBN available for sale online (probably used), this is not the correct textbook. It is likely either the previous "1st edition" or an even older "preliminary custom edition" version of the book that was used in past years. These older versions of the book do not contain all of the content from the correct course textbook. We will assign problems out of the 2nd edition that may not exist in the 1st edition. The older editions are not suitable for CSE 142 this quarter; we do not suggest using them as your textbook for the course this quarter. You will need to have access to the 2nd edition to do your weekly problems.