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Sprint 2 Guides

These guides support Sprint 2. Read them as you work through the requirements.

Design Patterns

Guide When to Read
Introduction to Design Patterns Before starting — understand what design patterns are and why they matter
The Observer Pattern Requirements 3, 6, 7 — PropertyChangeListener, PropertyChangeSupport, and event-driven updates
Model-View-Controller (MVC) Requirements 2–7 — understand the architecture you're building: Model (TetrisGame), View (panels), Controller (key/menu handlers)
The Strategy Pattern Supplementary — understand the Map-based strategy pattern used in the back-end API

GUI & Events

Guide When to Read
Handling Key Events Requirement 5 — KeyListener, KeyAdapter, and three patterns for mapping keys to actions
Animation with javax.swing.Timer Requirement 2 — setting up the game timer, start/stop, and why Timer runs on the EDT
Adding Event Handlers Review — ActionListener patterns for menu items and timer callbacks

References

Primary Texts:

  • Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., & Vlissides, J. (1994). Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Addison-Wesley. — Observer pattern (pp. 293–303), Strategy pattern (pp. 315–323), MVC introduction (pp. 4–6).
  • Freeman, E., & Robson, E. (2020). Head First Design Patterns (2nd ed.). O'Reilly. — Chapter 2: Observer Pattern, Chapter 12: MVC compound pattern.
  • Horstmann, C. S. (2022). Core Java, Volume I: Fundamentals (12th ed.). Oracle Press. — Swing event handling, Timer, PropertyChangeListener.
  • Bloch, J. (2018). Effective Java (3rd ed.). Addison-Wesley. — Item 42: Prefer lambdas to anonymous classes; Item 43: Prefer method references to lambdas.

Language Documentation:

Tutorials: