CS 1101 Cterm 11

Computer Science Department

CS 1101 C Term 2011
Introduction to Program Design

What this course is about

What drives someone to write a program? Once you have an idea for a program, what do you do next? What skills does it take to write useful programs? How does computer science interact with other disciplines? And what do computer scientists do besides programming anyway? CS 1101 introduces students to the worlds of computing and programming. Through a series of programming and information design exercises, students will learn how programmers view the world and how to turn problems into working programs. We'll study the various aspects of program design and write some fun programs along the way. This course assumes no prior programming background and is designed for both potential CS majors as well as curious students from other majors. Additional information about the course can be found in the WPI undergraduate catalog course description for CS 1101.

Course Objectives

CS 1101 is designed to help you identify problems that programs can solve and to learn how to design programs that solve problems. Program design involves a series of smaller skills, including information design, logic design, testing, and documentation. Improving your skills in these areas should help you with general problem solving even when you aren't programming.

Outcomes

Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:

Understand when to use and write programs over structures, lists, and trees
Develop data models for programming problems
Write recursive and mutually recursive programs
Explain when state is needed in value-oriented programming
Develop test procedures for simple programs

Mapping of Course Outcomes to CS Department Outcomes

Why Racket? Why isn't CS 1101 taught using C/C++/Java...? None of the courses in the Computer Science department are intended to just teach you a programming language. Our courses use one or more programming languages to teach Computer Science concepts. Racket (which is based on the programming language Scheme, which is based on the programming language Lisp, which has its roots in lambda calculus) is particularly well-suited for teaching beginning programmers the essential concepts of program design. It is a simple language that takes much less time to learn than languages like C++ and Java, giving you more time to master basic program design concepts. Languages come and go, but the methodology and organizational techniques we'll learn in this course will be helpful to you as problem-solving tools even if you never write another computer program.

Staff

Instructor: Glynis Hamel (GH)

Teaching Assistants: Chuan Lei (CL), Sahel Mastoureshgh (SM), Yumeng Qiu (YQ), Chiying Wang (CW)

Senior Assistants: Christopher Kevorkian (CK), Ryan Price (RP), Steve Ruck (SR), Jennifer Spinney (JS)

Office Hour Schedule

(Note: SA office hours will be held in FL A22. Glynis Hamel's office hours are held in FL 132.)

Additional office hours with Glynis Hamel are available by appointment on Mondays.

Day/Time 9:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 1:00 2:00 3:00 4:00 5:00 6:00 7:00

Monday (class) RP RP CL JS JS JS

Tuesday (class) SR SR GH CK CK

Wednesday RP RP CK CK

Thursday (class) SR SR GH JS YQ

Friday (class) SM GH CW

Class Discussion Board and Email

A Discussion Board for CS 1101 has been set up on myWPI. You will be expected to know all information posted on the myWPI site - check the announcements and Discussion Board on a daily basis.

If you have a question regarding your grades in the course, send email to cs1101-ta *at* cs.wpi.edu. Mail sent to this address goes to the instructor and to the TAs. Include your section number in all correspondence.

The instructor's email address is ghamel *at* cs.wpi.edu. Please restrict your use of my personal email address to issues of a confidential nature. You will get a quicker response if you post your questions to the class discussion board.

Lecture and Lab Times

Lectures meet MTRF from 10:00-10:50am in SL 115.

Labs meet on Wednesdays according to the following schedule:

Section Time Location Lab Assistants

C01 1 - 1:50pm SL 123 RP, JS

C02 12 - 12:50pm SL 123 RP, JS

C03 11 - 11:50am SL 123 CK, SR

C04 2 - 2:50pm SL 123 RP, JS

C05 9-9:50am SL 123 CK, SR

C06 10-10:50pm SL 123 CK, SR

Textbook and Software

Textbook: The textbook for the course is How to Design Programs by Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and Shriram Krishnamurthi. MIT Press, 2001. You may use the free online version or purchase a hard copy.

Software: We'll be writing programs using the programming language called Racket. You should download the most recent version of Racket (as of this writing, the most recent version is 5.0.2) to your computer. The software is free and supports the usual OS's (Unix, PC, Mac).

The Racket software (DrRacket) is installed on CCC Unix and all CCC lab machines

Grading

Exams (60%)

Three exams will be given. Exams are tentatively scheduled for January 31, February 15, and ~~March 4~~ Rescheduled for March 3. You must have a passing average on the exams in order to pass the course. (A passing average on the exams is usually around 60%. We may lower this threshold if the exam averages are low; the threshold will not be raised).

Exams are closed-book, closed-notes. You may bring in one sheet of notes (one paper, 8.5" x 11.5", both sides) to each exam. You may not use any computers, calculators, cellphones, headphones, or other electronic devices during the exams.

There are no makeups for exams. Absence from an exam will be excused only for medical or emergency reasons. A note from your doctor or from the Office of Academic Advising will be required. In such cases your final grade will be recorded as Incomplete and you will be allowed to take a makeup exam the next time the course is offered (A-term '11).

Note that the third exam is scheduled for the last day of the term - make plans for your spring break accordingly.

Homework (30%)

Seven homework assignments will be given. Starting with Homework 2, homework assignments will be done in pairs. Homework assignments will be due on Thursday evenings at 5pm. No extra credit or makeup assignments will be given. Read Homework Expectations for details on how to prepare your homeworks.

Labs (5%)

Labs will be given during conference sections on Wednesdays. To get credit for a lab you must attend at your scheduled time, sign the attendance sheet, actively work on the assignment during the lab period, and use turnin to turn in your work at the end of the lab period. Each lab will be graded as either credit (1) or no credit (0). At the end of the term, your 5 highest lab grades will be used to account for 5% of your final grade. You will not get credit for a lab unless you attend the section for which you are registered. There are no makeups for labs.

In-class assignments (5%)

Several times during the term we will take a few minutes of class time for in-class group work. This will consist of one or two questions related to recently-covered lecture material or homework problems. Each assignment will be graded as either credit (1) or no credit (0). At the end of the term, five of these assignments will be chosen at random by the instructor, and these will count as 5% of your final grade. There are no makeups for group assignments.

Academic Honesty Policy

Please read WPI's Academic Honesty Policy.

Labs and In-class assignments

Collaboration is encouraged for labs and in-class assignments.

Exams

Collaboration is prohibited on exams.

Homework

Homework assignment 1 is to be done individually.

Collaboration is encouraged within a homework pair on homework assignments 2 - 7. You may discuss problems across pairs, but each pair is responsible for writing up their own solution from scratch.

As examples, each of the following scenarios would constitute cheating (this list is not exhaustive!):

Two different homework pairs share a solution to a single question on a homework assignment.
Students from different homework pairs sit side-by-side while writing up their solutions and one student copies down what the other student types up.
You send the code for a completed homework question to a friend in another homework pair "just so he can look at it to figure out how to do the problem".
You obtain a solution to a homework problem (or a problem similar to a homework problem) from on-line or from someone who took the course in a previous term.

In contrast, the following scenarios would not constitute cheating:

Students from two different homework pairs discuss a pair-assignment (its goal, what it is asking you to do, what the challenging parts are, or how to approach the problem).
You ask any member of the course staff (professor, TAs, or SAs) for help in understanding or completing an individual assignment.
Students from the same homework pair share code to a solution.
Students from one homework pair show their code to a student from a different pair and ask for help in understanding why their code is wrong. (This would become cheating if the non-pair student provided or dictated a reasonable amount of the solution to the original pair).

Cheating will not be tolerated. If you are unsure whether a given activity would constitute cheating, ask the instructor. Violations of the Academic Honesty Policy can result in an NR for the course, and violators will be subject to the procedures outlined in section 5 of the WPI Judicial Policy.

Late Policy

Late homework will be accepted within 24 hours of the due date. Each student will be allowed one late submission without penalty. Beyond that, late homework will incur a 25 per cent penalty. Any homework turned in after the 24-hour grace period will receive a grade of zero. No extra credit or makeup homework assignments will be given.

Do not send email to me or to the TAs requesting special exemption from the late policy. The late policy is applicable for all possible reasons for late submissions. In particular, one pair member forgetting to turn in an assignment on time will not be considered an acceptable excuse for an extension.

Homework Submission Policy

Homework must be submitted using the web-based turnin program. Homework submitted by any other means (paper, email, etc.) will receive a grade of zero.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accomodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability Services Office (DSO) as soon as possible to ensure that such accomodations are implemented in a timely fashion. The DSO is located in Daniels Hall.

Schedule & Assignments

Note: the instructor reserves the right to change the order of topics or the dates of the exams, if necessary.

http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~cs1101/c11/index.html

Day/Time	9:00	10:00	11:00	12:00	1:00	2:00	3:00	4:00	5:00	6:00	7:00
Monday		(class)	RP	RP			CL	JS	JS	JS
Tuesday		(class)	SR	SR			GH		CK	CK
Wednesday							RP	RP	CK	CK
Thursday		(class)	SR	SR	GH			JS		YQ
Friday		(class)		SM		GH		CW

Section	Time	Location	Lab Assistants
C01	1 - 1:50pm	SL 123	RP, JS
C02	12 - 12:50pm	SL 123	RP, JS
C03	11 - 11:50am	SL 123	CK, SR
C04	2 - 2:50pm	SL 123	RP, JS
C05	9-9:50am	SL 123	CK, SR
C06	10-10:50pm	SL 123	CK, SR

Week	Reading	Topics	Assignments	Extra Notes
Jan 13 - 14	HTDP Chapter 1 HTDP Chapter 2	Intro to Programming and Racket Expressions, Images, and Functions	Homework 1 (due: Thursday, Jan 20)	Lecture 1 objectives Lecture 2 objectives Using Images Creating Operators Homework 1 solution
Jan 17 - 21	HTDP Chapter 3 HTDP Chapter 4 HTDP Chapter 5 HTDP Chapter 6	January 17 - No School (MLK Day) Function Composition Conditionals Symbols and strings Structures	Lab 1, Wed Jan 19 Homework 2 (due: Thursday, Jan 27)	Lecture 3 objectives Lecture 4 objectives Lecture 5 objectives Homework 2 solution
Jan 24 - 28	HTDP Chapter 7 HTDP Chapter 9	Nested structs Unions The Design Recipe Lists	Lab 2,Wed Jan 26 Homework 3 (due: Thursday, February 3)	Lecture 6 objectives Lecture 7 objectives Lecture 8 objectives Lecture 9 objectives Study Guide on Structures Data Definitions and Templates for Structs[pdf] Design Recipe Worksheet[pdf] Exam preparation Guidelines Sample Exam 1 [pdf] Data Definition and Template for Lists[pdf] When to Think While Programming Solutions to Homework 3
Jan 31 - Feb 4	HTDP Chapter 10.1 HTDP Chapter 10.2	Exam 1, Monday, January 31 Producing lists Lists of Structs	Lab 3, Wed Feb 2 Homework 4 (due: Thursday, Feb 10)	Lecture 10 - Exam 1 Lecture 11 objectives Lecture 12 objectives Lecture 13 objectives Data Definition and Template for List of Struct[pdf] Solutions and additional problems from Lecture 12 Answers to Lecture 13 class problems (CD inventories) Solutions to Homework 4
Feb 7 - 11	HTDP Chapter 14.1 HTDP Chapter 15.1 HTDP Chapter 15.2	Sorting Trees Hierarchies	Lab 4, Wed Feb 9 Homework 5 (due: Thursday, Feb 17)	Lecture 14 objectives Lecture 15 objectives Lecture 16 objectives Lecture 17 objectives Insertion Sort Additional problems from Lecture 15 Exam preparation Guidelines Sample Exam 2 [pdf] Tree Data Definitions - Ancestor (fixed-width) trees (.pdf) Thursday's lecture notes - fixed-width and variable-width trees Solutions to Friday's lecture problems
Feb 14 - 18	HTDP Chapter 34 HTDP Chapter 35 HTDP Chapter 36 HTDP Chapter 37.1	More on hierarchies Exam 2, Tuesday, Feb 15 Feb 17 - No Class (Academic Advising Day) Homework 5 due Feb 17 Higher-order functions; filter	Lab 5, Wed Feb 16 Homework 6 (due: Thursday, Feb 24)	Lecture 18 objectives Lecture 19 - Exam 2 Lecture 20 objectives Friday's exercises using filter
Feb 21 - 25	HTDP Chapter 40.3 HTDP Chapter 40.5 HTDP Chapter 41 HTDP Chapter 31	Higher-order functions; map Accumulating data Program design with set!	Lab 6, Wed Feb 23 Homework 7 (due: Thursday, Mar 3)	Lecture 21 objectives Lecture 22 objectives Lecture 23 objectives Lecture 24 objectives Solutions to Monday's problems (map/filter) Solutions to Tuesday's problems (accumulator-style functions) Thursday's lecture problems on set! Code for Vending machine Sample Exam 3 [pdf]
Feb 28 - Mar 4	HTDP Chapter 21.1, 21.2	Changing struct contents More on mutation with structures Wrap-up, course evaluations ~~Exam 3, Friday, Mar 4~~RESCHEDULED Exam 3, Thursday, March 3	Exam help sessions during Lab hours, 9am-3pm, SL 123	Lecture 25 objectives Lecture 26 objectives Lecture 27 - Exam 3 Lecture 28 - return exams, programming with cyclic data Fun with set-structure!

CS 1101 C Term 2011 Introduction to Program Design