Syllabus and general information for MC28: Introduction to Computer
Science II (Spring 1997)
Overview
In MC28 we continue exploring the perspectives and methods of computer
science, particularly abstraction. We'll first confront language
issues by investigating how one might write and modify a Scheme system
in Scheme, a so-called meta-circular evaluator. We'll next consider
the notion of computations with changing state by looking ``under the
hood'' at computers. We'll extend this notion of state into other
areas, such as the use of state to construct more efficient
computational processes than otherwise, and the use of object-based
and object-oriented programming to model systems of objects with
changing state. Finally, at the end of the semester we'll see how
object-oriented programming plays out in a second programming language
(Java) and take a brief look at its use in writing event-driven and
concurrent programs (those that behave in response to user actions and
those that do more than one thing at a time).
Office hours
I will be available in my office (OHS 303) on Mondays from 1:30 to
2:20, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 11:20, on Wednesdays
from 9:00 to 9:50, and by appointment. You may send me electronic mail at
max@gac.edu or call me at extension
7466. I'll try to put any temporary updates to my office hours on my
web page and any long-term updates on my
on-line schedule, so check
there if in doubt.
Karl Knight, the other lab instructor, will have office hours
on Mondays and Fridays from 11:30 to 12:20, on Tuesdays and Thursdays
from 9:00 to 9:50, and by
appointment. His office is
OHS 312, his email address is karl@gac.edu, and his phone extension
is 7479.
World Wide Web
All course handouts will be available through my World Wide Web page,
and some supplementary materials such as code to use as a starting
point in assignments may be available there as well. The URL for this
course is http://www.gac.edu/~max/courses/S97/MC28.
Prerequisites
The normal prerequisite is MC27, but Karl Knight's FT01 from Fall of
1995 or 1996 together with his J-term course from 1996 or Mike
Hvidsten's from 1997 is also acceptable.
Text and readings
The primary text for the course will be the manuscript Concrete
Abstractions: An Introduction to Computer Science by Max
Hailperin, Barbara Kaiser, and Karl Knight. We will use chapters
10-14, which are in a separate ``MC28'' volume at the Book Mark.
Please don't buy another copy of the MC27 volume. For
the Java part of the course at the end of the semester, I'll use
handouts. (There's also an on-line Java Tutorial at http://www.javasoft.com/books/Series/Tutorial/,
and copies of Arnold and Gosling's The Java Programming
Language book and Cornell and Horstmann's Core Java book in
the MCS Lab monitors' room, any of which you are welcome to use as
a supplement.)
Labs
Normally labs will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays and classes on
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but there are a few exceptions. The
first Tuesday, February 11th, will be a class day rather than a lab
day. Tuesday, March 11th, will also be a class rather than a lab day.
Friday, April 18th, and Monday, May 19th, will be lab days rather than
class days. Labs will be held in the OHS 326 lab, using the SGI
computers.
Tests
The two intra-term exams will be conducted during the evening from
7:00-8:30pm on Thursday, March 13th, and Thursday, April 17th. (There
will be no lab on those two days.) Please let me know as soon
as possible if you won't be able to take the tests at those
times. The final exam will be as scheduled by the registrar;
tentatively 3:30 on Saturday, May 24th.
Honor
Students are encouraged to discuss the course, including issues raised
by the assignments. However, the solutions to assignments
should be individual original work unless otherwise specified. If an
assignment makes you realize you don't understand the material, ask a
fellow student a question designed to improve your understanding,
not one designed to get the assignment done. To do otherwise is to
cheat yourself out of understanding, as well as to be intolerably
dishonorable.
Any substantive contribution to your solution by another person or
taken from a publication should be properly acknowledged in writing.
Failure to do so is plagiarism and will necessitate disciplinary
action.
The same standards regarding plagiarism apply to team projects as to
the work of individuals, except that the author is now the entire team
rather than an individual. Anything taken from a source outside the
team should be be properly cited.
One additional issue that arises from the team authorship of
project reports is that all team members must stand behind all reports
bearing their names. All team members have quality assurance
responsibility for the entire project. If there is irreconcilable
disagreement within the team it is necessary to indicate as much in
the reports; this can be in the form of a ``minority opinion'' or
``dissenting opinion'' section where appropriate.
Late assignments
All homework and lab assignments are due at the beginning of class on
the day indicated. Late assignments will be penalized by one ``grade
notch'' (such as A to A- or A- to B+) for each weekday late or fraction
thereof. However, no late assignments will be accepted after graded
assignments are handed back.
If you are too sick to complete an assignment on time, you
will not be penalized. Simply write ``late due to illness'' at the
top of the assignment, sign your name and hand it in. Other circumstances
will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Grade changes
Please point out any arithmetic or clerical error I make in grading,
and I will gladly fix it. You may also request reconsideration if I
have been especially unjust.
Grading
I will provide you with a letter grade on each homework and lab
assignment and on each test, in addition to the mid-term and final
grades, so that you may keep track of your performance. As a
guideline, the components will contribute in the following proportion
to the final grade:
- 35% lab assignments (7 @ 5% each)
- 21% homework (7 @ 3% each)
- 26% intra-term exams (2 @ 13% each)
- 18% final exam
However, I reserve the right to subjectively adjust your final grade.
Please see me if you have any question how you stand. Class
participation is not graded; however, it allows you to find and repair
the gaps in your understanding before doing the homework or exam, and
thus can dramatically improve your grade.
Style guidelines
All homework and lab reports should be readily readable, and should
not presuppose that I already know what you are trying to say. In
particular:
-
Use full English sentences where appropriate (namely almost
everywhere, including in mathematical proofs or derivations).
-
Word-process or type your homework if you can. In any case, make sure
it is legible.
-
Use diagrams, tables, programs, and calculations as supporting
components of English writing, not in isolation. Remember that your
goal is to communicate clearly, and that the appearance of these
technical items plays a role in this communication process.
Be sure your assignments are always stapled together and that your
name is always on them.
Accessibility
Please contact me immediately if you have special physical
circumstances, e.g. impaired vision, which may affect the
accessibility of any course components. I will do my best to
facilitate necessary arrangements or resources.
Syllabus
When a reading is indicated as going to a particular page number, it
means up to the heading on that page. The same section number on the
next class day then indicates to finish the section.
This is my best guess as to the rate at which we will cover material.
However, don't be shocked if I have to pass out one or more revised
syllabi.
| Date | Reading | Topic | Due
|
|---|
| 2/10 | 10.1-10.2 | EBNF |
|
| 2/11 | 10.3 | Micro-Scheme (class instead of lab) |
|
| 2/12 | | More on Micro-Scheme |
|
| 2/13 | | Lab 1: Extending evaluators |
|
| 2/14 | 10.4 | Global definitions: Mini-Scheme |
|
|
| 2/17 | 10.5 | Adding explanatory output | HW 1
|
| 2/18 | | Lab 1 (continued) |
|
| 2/19 | | More on explanatory output |
|
| 2/20 | | Lab 1 (continued) |
|
| 2/21 | 11.1-11.2 | The SLIM architecture |
|
|
| 2/24 | 11.3 | SLIM's instruction set |
|
| 2/25 | | Lab 1 (concludes) |
|
| 2/26 | 11.4 | Iteration in assembly language | Lab 1
|
| 2/27 | | Lab 2: Assembly language programming |
|
|
| 3/3 | 11.5 | Recursion in assembly language | HW 2
|
| 3/4 | | Lab 2 (continued) |
|
| 3/5 | | More on assembly programming |
|
| 3/6 | | Lab 2 (concludes) |
|
| 3/7 | 11.6 | Memory in Scheme: vectors |
|
|
| 3/10 | | More on vectors | Lab 2
|
| 3/11 | 12.1 | Revisiting tree recursion |
|
| 3/12 | | Review; catch-up | HW 3
|
| 3/13 | | Test 1, 7:00-8:30pm; no lab |
|
| 3/14 | 12.2 | Memoization |
|
|
| 3/17 | | More on memoization |
|
| 3/18 | | Lab 3: Formatting paragraphs |
|
| 3/19 | 12.3 | Dynamic programming |
|
| 3/20 | | Lab 3 (continued) |
|
| 3/21 | 12.4 | More on dynamic programming |
|
|
| 3/24 | 13.1 | Arithmetic expressions revisited | HW 4
|
| 3/25 | | Lab 3 (continued) |
|
| 3/26 | 13.2 | RA-stacks and rep. invariants |
|
| 3/27 | | Lab 3 (concludes) |
|
|
| 4/7 | | More on RA-stacks and rep. invariants | Lab 3
|
| 4/8 | | Lab 4: Robots |
|
| 4/9 | 13.3 | Red-black trees |
|
| 4/10 | | Lab 4 (continued) |
|
| 4/11 | | More on red-black trees | HW 5
|
|
| 4/14 | 13.4 | Dictionaries |
|
| 4/15 | | Lab 4 (concludes) |
|
| 4/16 | | Review; catch-up | Lab 4
|
| 4/17 | | Test 2, 7:00-8:30pm; no lab |
|
| 4/18 | | Lab 5: Dictionaries (lab instead of class) |
|
|
| 4/21 | 14.1-14.2 | Object-oriented programming |
|
| 4/22 | | Lab 5 (continued) |
|
| 4/23 | | More on object-oriented programming |
|
| 4/24 | | Lab 5 (concludes) |
|
| 4/25 | 14.3 | Extensions/variations on compu-duds |
|
|
| 4/28 | 14.4-p. 584 | Implementing object-oriented programming | Lab 5
|
| 4/29 | | Lab 6: Adventures in the Imaginary Land of Gack |
|
| 4/30 | 14.4 | More on implementation of o-o programming |
|
| 5/1 | | Lab 6 (continued) |
|
| 5/2 | | Yet more on implementation of o-o
programming | HW 6
|
|
| 5/5 | | Programming in Java |
|
| 5/6 | | Lab 6 (continued) |
|
| 5/7 | | More on programming in Java |
|
| 5/8 | | Lab 6 (concludes) |
|
| 5/9 | | Event-driven GUI programming in Java |
|
|
| 5/12 | | More on event-driven GUI programming | Lab 6
|
| 5/13 | | Lab 7: CompuDuds in Java |
|
| 5/14 | | Concurrency in Java |
|
| 5/15 | | Lab 7 (continued) |
|
| 5/16 | | More on concurrency |
|
|
| 5/19 | | Lab 7 (continued) (lab instead of
class) | HW 7
|
| 5/20 | | Lab 7 (concludes) |
|
| 5/21 | | Review; catch-up; evaluation | Lab 7
|
|
| 5/24 | | Final exam, 3:30 (tentative) |
|
Course web site: http://www.gac.edu/~max/courses/S97/MC28/
Instructor: Max Hailperin <max@gac.edu>
Other lab instructor: Karl Knight <karl@gac.edu>