CS 2301 D Term 2013
Systems Programming for Non-Majors

---

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 Linux commands to manage files and develop programs

---

Staff

Instructor: Glynis Hamel

Teaching Assistants: Maryam Hasan, Fei Song

Senior Assistant: Brian Gaffey

Office Hour Schedule

(Note: TA office hours are held in FL A22 (Fuller sub-basement, next to the Zoo Lab). Glynis Hamel's office hours are held in FL 132.)




Day/Time	9:00	10:00	11:00	12:00	1:00	2:00	3:00	4:00
Monday	(class)	(class)	Maryam	Fei	Glynis			Brian
Tuesday			Maryam*				Brian
Wednesday
Thursday	(class)	(class)	Fei					Brian
Friday		Glynis

(* Maryam might be a few minutes late to this office hour)

(Glynis Hamel will also be available for office hours on Thursday afternoons 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 the CS 2301 myWPI site. 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.

---

Lecture and Lab Times

Lectures meet Mon/Thu from 9:00-10:50am in FLPH-LWR (lower Perreault Lecture Hall in Fuller Labs)

Labs meet on Wednesdays according to the following schedule:

Section	Time	Location	TAs
D01	2:00 - 2:50pm	GH 012	Brian, Maryam
D02	3:00-3:50pm	GH 012	Brian, Maryam
D03	4:00-4:50pm	GH 012	Brian, Fei

---

Textbook, Software, and Authors' Website

Textbook (required): Deitel, H. M., and P. J. Deitel, C How to Program, 7th edition, Prentice Hall, 2013. (If you find a used copy of the 6th edition, that's fine, too.)

Software: Assignments will be done on CCC machines running Linux. You can access these machines via an ssh client to ccc.wpi.edu from any lab on campus or from your own personal machine. We will be using the GNU C compiler (gcc). You will be given instructions on how to use the compiler during the lab sessions.

---

Grading

Quizzes (60%)

Six quizzes will be given, one each Monday beginning March 18. You must have a passing average on the quizzes in order to pass the course. (A passing average on the quizzes is usually around 60%. We may lower this threshold if the quiz averages are low; the threshold will not be raised).

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

There are no makeups for quizzes. Only the top 5 (out of 6) quiz grades will be used in calculating your quiz average and final course grade. The lowest quiz grade will be dropped. Consequently, if you have to miss a quiz due to illness or for any other reason, your grade on the quiz will be zero.

Homework (35%)

Six homework assignments will be given. Assignments will be due at 5pm on Tuesdays (see the Late Policy, below). No extra credit or makeup homework assignments will be given.

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 at the end of the lab period. Each lab will be graded as either credit (1) or no credit (0). Your lowest lab grade will be dropped. There are no makeups for labs.

---

Academic Honesty Policy

Please read WPI's Academic Honesty Policy.

Labs

Collaboration is encouraged for labs.

Quizzes

Quizzes are to be done individually.

Homework

You have the option of working with a partner on the homework assignments, if you wish. If you decide to work with a partner, you will have the same partner throughout the term, and both partners will receive the same grade on any given assignment. Here is more information about working with a homework partner.

In the following discussion of Academic Honesty as it pertains to homework in CS2301, sharing between members of a homework pair is encouraged. All other kinds of sharing (between one homework pair and another homework pair, between two individuals, or between a homework pair and an individual) are subject to the following rules:

You are encouraged to talk with others in a general way about homework assignments (what approach to take, for example), but any work submitted for grading must be solely that of the individual/pair who submits the work. Some examples of situations that would be considered academically dishonest are

• two or more (individuals/pairs) 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 (individual/pair) (with or without that other individual's/pair'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 (individual/pair)

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 individual/pair will be allowed one late submission without penalty. Beyond that, late homework will incur a 25 percent 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.

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

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

Week	Reading	Topics	Handouts	Assignments
Mar 11 - 15	Chapters 1-4 Week 1 Objectives	Course overview intro to I/O: scanf, printf Boolean expressions if-statement loops data types and casts compiling and executing C programs	Handout 1 - first C program Handout 2 - if statement Handout 3 - while loop Handout 4 - looping, casts	Lab 1 (Wed, 3/13) Homework 1 (due: Tuesday, 3/19)
Mar 18 - 22	Chapter 5 Week 2 objectives	function definition function calls call-by-value documenting functions scope and storage class	Handout 5 - example of a C library function Handout 6 - Program to call AreaTriangle function Handout 7 - a void function Handout 8 - Scope Handout 9 - global variables Handout 10 - static variables Handout 11 - another example of static variables (ticket numbers)	Lab 2 (Wed, 3/20) Homework 2 (due: Tuesday, 3/26)
Mar 25 - 29	Chapter 6 (sections 6.1 - 6.5, 6.9, 6.11) Chapter 7 (sections 7.1 - 7.5, 7.7 - 7.9, 7.13) Week 3 objectives	arrays pointers simulating call-by-reference with pointers pointer arithmetic pointers and arrays	Handout 12 - Array of test scores Handout 13 - Subarray processing Handout 14 - Passing an array as a parameter Handout 15 - Using pointers to simulate call-by-reference Handout 16 - Pointers as arguments to functions Handout 17 - Swapping two values	Lab 3 (Wed 3/27) Homework 3 (due: Tuesday, 4/2)
April 1 - 5	Chapter 8 (skim sections 8.3, 8.4) Section 7.10 Chapter 10 (sections 10.1 - 10.6) Week 4 objectives	chars and strings C string functions arrays of pointers makefiles structs	Handout 18 - Allocating space for arrays dynamically Handout 19 - C's built-in strlen function Handout 20 - using scanf with strings Handout 21 - tools header file Handout 22 - tools implementation file Handout 23 - program that uses tools library Handout 24 - makefile for building a program Handout 25 - simple struct definition Handout 26 - nested struct definition	Lab 4 (Wed 4/3) Homework 4 (due: Tuesday, 4/9)
April 8 - 12	Chapter 12 (sections 12.1 - 12.6, 12.8) Week 5 objectives	dynamic memory and linked lists queues		Lab 5 (Wed 4/10) Homework 5 (due: Tuesday, 4/16Thursday, 4/18)
April 15 - 19	Sections 5.7, 6.9, 6.10, 7.10, 12.5 Week 6 objectives	stacks and function calls more on arrays	Handout 27 - Stackframes Handout 28 - Two-dimensional arrays Handout 29 - Input file for two-dimensional array program Handout 30 - Passing two-dimensional arrays as parameters	(no quiz this week) (no lab this week) Homework 6 (due: Tuesday, 4/23 Friday, April 26)
April 22 - 26	Sections 10.9, 12.7 Week 7 objectives	trees typedef, bit operations hash tables	Handout 31 - Bit operations	Lab 6 (Wed 4/24)
April 29		Wrap-up; last quiz


http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~cs2301/d13/index.html