Suggested Projects

Skill-Building Exercises

1. Research:   Procure a copy of the Gang-of-Four’s Design Patterns book and expand your understanding of object-oriented software design patterns.

2. UML Sequence Diagram:   Create a UML sequence diagram showing the sequence of events when the button is clicked in the View component of the MVC example given in examples 25.9 through 25.11.

3. UML Sequence Diagram:   Create a UML sequence diagram showing the sequence of events for command execu-tion when the File->Load menuitem is selected in the Employee Management Application.

4. Writing Exercise:   Write an essay on the topic of software design patterns. Discuss their history, origin, and utility.

5. Talk With A Mentor:   Arrange an interview with a senior Java software engineer and ask them how often they use design patterns in their work.

6. Compile And Run Chapter Examples:   Compile and run the example programs given in this chapter.

7. Programming:   Modify the CommandProperties class given in example 25.40 so that it checks the date of the properties file before loading it to read the property values. Add a new field to the CommandProperties class called “last_modified” that stores the last modification value of the properties file. Add a new method to the Command-Properties class called loadPropertiesFile() that performs the required last_modified value check and reinitializes the property values as required. Add the capability in the GUI to check for updated property files and to force the reloading of a newly created Command class. (Note: The new Command class name must differ from the name of Command class it is replacing.)