CS 2301 B Term 2011
Systems Programming for Non-Majors

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What this course is about

The goal of CS 2301 is to help students with prior program design experience migrate their skills to a model of programming where the programming language exposes details of how the hardware stores and executes software. This course is intended for non-computer science majors who wish to take upper-level courses in the systems area of the computer science curriculum. Recommended background and course topics are listed in the WPI undergraduate catalog course description

Course Outcomes

• Be able to design, implement, test, debug, and document programs in C
• Understand how a program in an imperative language transforms data by changing the contents of memory cells
• Be able to program with pointers and perform pointer arithmetic
• Be able to write programs that perform manual memory management
• Understand how the stack is used to implement function calls
• Understand low-level input and output routines
• Use Unix commands to manage files and develop programs

Mapping of course outcomes to CS Department Outcomes

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Staff

Instructor: Glynis Hamel (GH)

Teaching Assistants: Hao Wan (HW), Dazhi "Jason" Zhang (DZ)

Senior Assistants: Jian Mao (JM), Joanne Zhang (JZ)

Office Hour Schedule

(Note: TA/SA office hours are held in FL A22 (Fuller basement). Glynis Hamel's office hours are held in FL 132.)




Day/Time	10:00	11:00	12:00	1:00	2:00	3:00	4:00	5:00	6:00	7:00	8:00
Monday	GH	DZ	HW				JM		JZ
Tuesday	DZ	DZ				GH
Wednesday	HW		JZ	JZ
Thursday	HW					JM	JM
Friday					GH

(Glynis Hamel will also be available for office hours on Thursday by appointment)




Announcements, Class Discussion Board and Email

A discussion board for CS 2301 has been set up on myWPI . All students enrolled in the course have access to this discussion board. You should visit the discussion board and check the Announcements on myWPI on a daily basis.

If you have a question regarding your grades in the course, please send email to cs2301-staff *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.

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Lecture and Lab Times

Lectures meet MTRF from 1:00-1:50pm   in HL116

Labs meet on Wednesdays according to the following schedule:

Section	Time	Location	SAs
B01	2:00 - 2:50pm	HL 230	Jian, Joanne
B02	3:00-3:50pm	HL 230	Jian, Joanne

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Textbook, Software, and Authors' Website

Textbook (required): Kernighan, Brian W. and Dennis M. Ritchie, The C Programming Language, second edition, Prentice Hall, 1988

(recommended; a copy will be placed on reserve at the library): Deitel, H. M., and P. J. Deitel, C How to Program, 6th edition, Prentice Hall, 2007.

Software: Most assignments and classroom demonstrations will be done on CCC machines running Linux. Windows workstations in the public computer labs on campus include the PuTTY program and X-Win server to provide interactive access to the CCC computers. You will be given instructions on how to use the Linux tools (compiler, debugger, make utility) during the lab sessions. The last lab and homework assignments will be done using the Visual Studio IDE.

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Grading

Exams (60%)

Three exams will be given. Exams are tentatively scheduled for November 10, November 29, and December 15. 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, 8.5in x 11.5in, both sides) to each exam. You may not use any computers, calculators, cellphones, 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.

Homework (30%)

Six homework assignments will be given. Assignments will be due at 5pm on the due date. No extra credit or makeup homework assignments will be given. Here is detailed information about homework submission and grading.

Labs (5%)

Labs will be given during conference sections on Wednesdays. To get credit for a lab you must attend at your scheduled time, actively work on the assignment during the lab period, and use turnin to turn in your work by 11:59pm on the day of the lab. Each lab will be graded as either credit (1) or no credit (0). 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 group 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 in-class assignments.

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Academic Honesty Policy

Please read WPI's Academic Honesty Policy.

Labs and In-class group work

Collaboration is encouraged for labs and in-class group work.

Exams and Homework

Exams and homework are to be done individually. You are encouraged to talk with others in a general way about homework assignments (what approach to take, for example), but any work you submit for grading must be your own. Some examples of situations that would be considered academically dishonest are
• two or more students write the solution or part of the solution to a homework assignment together
• all or part of a solution to a homework assignment is copied from another student (with or without that other student's consent)
• all or part of a solution to a homework assignment is copied from a book, journal, or website
• providing all or part of a solution to a homework assignment to another student

If you receive general help from another student or an outside source, that student or source must be acknowledged in the documentation accompanying your submitted work.

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 percent penalty (i.e., 25% of the possible points on the assignment). 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.

Homework Submission Policy

Homework must be submitted using the Unix 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.

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Schedule

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

Week	Reading	Topics	Handouts	Assignments
Oct 25 - 28	Chapters 1-3, 7.2, 7.4 Lecture 1 objectives Lecture 2 objectives Lecture 3 objectives	Course overview intro to I/O: scanf, printf Boolean expressions if-statement loops data types and casts compiling and executing C programs	Lecture 1 handout Lecture 2 handout Lecture 3 handout (1) Lecture 3 handout (2)	Lab 1 (Wed, 10/26) Homework 1 (due: Tuesday, 11/1)
Oct 31 - Nov 4	Chapter 4, 7.8.6 Lecture 4 objectives Lecture 5 objectives Lecture 6 objectives Lecture 7 objectives	function definition function calls call-by-value documenting functions scope and storage class arrays	Lecture 4 handout (1) Lecture 4 handout(2) Lecture 5 handout (1) Lecture 5 handout (2) Lecture 6 handout (1) Lecture 6 handout (2) Lecture 6 handout (3) Lecture 7 handout(1) Lecture 7 handout(2)	Lab 2 (Wed, 11/2) Homework 2 (due: Tuesday, 11/8)
Nov 7 - 11	Sections 5.1 - 5.4 Lecture 8 objectives Lecture 9 - Review Lecture 10 - Exam 1 Lecture 11 objectives	pointers Exam review/catch up Exam 1, Thursday, November 10 simulating call-by-reference with pointers pointer arithmetic pointers and arrays	Sample Exam 1 (.pdf file) Lecture 8 handout(1) Lecture 8 handout(2)	Lab 3 (Wed 11/9) Homework 3 (due: Tuesday, 11/15)
Nov 14 - 18	Sections 5.5 - 5.6, 7.8.1 - 7.8.2, 6.1 - 6.4 Lecture 12 objectives Lecture 13 objectives Lecture 14 objectives Lecture 15 objectives	chars and strings C string functions arrays of pointers makefiles structs	Lecture 12 handout Lecture 14 handout(1) Lecture 14 handout(2) Lecture 14 handout(3) Lecture 14 handout(4) Lecture 15 handout(1) Lecture 15 handout(2)	Lab 4 (Wed 11/16) Homework 4 (due: Tuesday, 11/22)
Nov 21 - 22	Section 7.8.5 Lecture 16 objectives Lecture 17 objectives Thanksgiving break	dynamic memory and linked lists queues	Lecture 16 handout Professor Lauer's PP slides on Queues Sample Exam 2	Homework 5 (due: Tuesday, 12/6)
Nov 28 - Dec 2	Sections 7.5 - 7.7, 6.5, Appendix B.1.5, B.1.6 Lecture 18 objectives Lecture 19 - Exam 2 Lecture 20 objectives Lecture 21 objectives	more linked lists Exam 2, Tuesday, November 29 trees file processing	Lecture 21 handout (1) Lecture 21 handout (2) Lecture 21 handout (3) Lecture 21 handout (4)	Lab 5 (.docx file) (Wed 11/30)
Dec 5 - 9	Sections 5.7 - 5.10, 6.6 - 6.9 Lecture 22 objectives Lecture 23 objectives Lecture 24 objectives Lecture 25 objectives	more on arrays typedef, bit operations unions, bit fields hash tables	Lecture 22 handout (1) Lecture 22 handout (2) Lecture 23 handout	Lab 6 (Wed 12/7) Homework 6 (due: Tuesday, 12/13)
Dec 12 - 15	Lecture 26 objectives Lecture 27 - Review Lecture 28 - Exam 3	hash tables Exam review/ catch up Exam 3, Thursday, Dec 15	Sample Exam 3


http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~cs2301/b11/index.html