This course presents a conceptual and practical introduction to object oriented programming and software engineering practices, exemplified by Java. As well as providing a grounding in the use of Java, the course will cover general principles of programming in imperative and object oriented frameworks. After completing the course successfully, students will be able to develop programs that support experimentation, simulation and exploration in other parts of the Informatics curriculum (e.g. the capacity to implement, test and observe a particular algorithm).