cs ab: java book

[valis]

I will be signing up for the ap computer science ab test this year (which is all java), unfortunately no overpopulated high school in 4 in my town offers any cs courses so I have no-one to go to.

I have been studying for many years now, unfortunately I'm an anti-oop c/asm programmer so I have always re-written my own common functions or used c/asm libraries; on the ap test I would surely fail if I didn't use the standard java classes or wrote my own class.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a book to read to prepare myself for this test. A book that is commonly used in preparation for this test would be great, or:
I will need to know all the standard classes like trees, linked lists, queues, etc. It would be optimal if this book didn't bother explaining any of the logic or technical aspects and instead just went over the standard classes and their common methods. Also I initially learned to program with c++ so it would be nice if it didn't go over oop concepts.

I would post this in a java forum (what an idea) but I don't know any (I'm sure a search engine couldn't help me with this) and the idea of registering isn't exhilerating.

If any of you have taken the test (or something similar that used java) suggestions etc. are greatly appreciated.

Much Thanks

[Narf]

I'm an anti-oop c/asm programmer

I doubt that you're really anti-OOP because OOP borrows good practices from other paradigms, including structured programming, which is probably what you do if you're any good with C and ASM. More likely you're just anti-inheritance.

I will need to know all the standard classes like trees, linked lists, queues, etc.

You don't need a book. All of the standard documentation is free online.

I would post this in a java forum (what an idea) but I don't know any

JavaRanch is a good one.

[valis]

I doubt that you're really anti-OOP because OOP borrows good practices from other paradigms, including structured programming, which is probably what you do if you're any good with C and ASM. More likely you're just anti-inheritance.

Thanks for the info, very useful, I'll scrounge around the ap site in hopes that they list what standard classes I need to know.

I suppose your right, I'm not completely anti-inheritence though, I actually see the use of virtual functions, polymorphism, etc., I just don't like the idea of melding functions with variables and I don't like it when I'm using something I don't understand; oop really helps out with complete encapsulation. Although I don't like oop, you're right- I find structures quite useful; but with structures one can generally expect what fields will be modified (plus no functions attached) and I can more easily treat it like a large hunk of memory if I want or need.
I stubbornly admit that oop has it's place.

I hope I haven't just hijacked my own thread.

[Narf]

I stubbornly admit that oop has it's place.

That's good, except for the stubborn part. OOP isn't nearly what it was hyped to be, but neither was structured programming. With OOP we're just repeating history and moving closer to better programming methodologies. Use it when it's best, don't use it when it's not.