Class and Lab Schedule
Section 290:
Wednesday,
1:00 PM to
3:20 PM, Room
D 208
Prerequisites
MAT 108 or MAT 124. CIS 122 or
equivalent programming experience strongly recommended.
Purpose
This course is the first course of the core sequence
in Parkland's Computer Science transfer program. It introduces a
disciplined approach to problem-solving and algorithm development.
It covers the following programming topics:
simple program creation, testing, and documentation using good
programming style; data types; expressions; sequence, selection,
and repetition control structures;
using and defining functions including both pass-by-value and
pass-by-reference parameters; arrays; files; and using objects created from predefined classes. It uses
the C programming language, with some features of C++, as its
high-level, block structured language.
Structure
Lectures,
readings, progressively harder small programs, graded projects, and tests. The lectures and readings will cover
theory. The small programs will be completed during the
first half of the course, and the projects will occupy
the second half of the course. The projects will require C
programming solutions using good procedural design
using appropriate C functions. Some of the projects
may be started in
class and then finished by the students individually. The tests
will be administered on
Angel, and will assure mastery of specific knowledge and skills covered in the lectures,
readings, small programs, and projects.
Important note: Since this is a Hybrid Class, you are
expected to get more of your information from the text and on-line course
materials, (especially
Marc Brandyberry's On-Line Csc 123 Course).
The lectures in this Hybrid Section will be fundamentally different from the
lectures in the Traditional Section. I will concentrate more on concepts,
covering the material at twice the speed, with a lot fewer examples. Any
student is welcome to either switch to the Traditional Section, or attend the
Traditional Section's lectures for any part of the course that he or she is
having trouble understanding from the text and on-line course materials alone.
Text
Problem Solving
with C++,
Walter Savitch,
6th Edition, Copyright 2007,
ISBN
0-321-41269-9
This is the required text, and you must get it for the
course. The course will follow this text closely. Yes, it is
ridiculously expensive ($101 at the Parkland Bookstore), but you will also be
able to keep it for Csc 125, Computer Science II, if you go on to that course. Csc 125 will use use this text as its only required text for the foreseeable
future (our promise to you). A used text is fine, as long as it is the 6th
edition. I do not plan on using the enclosed CD, so you can get by with a used text without the enclosed CD.
Also, you may want to leave the CD unopened in its pocket to possibly increase
the used price of the text.
Storage
(Flash Drives are best)
You should have a USB Flash Drive for use
during class, although it can be very small capacity by today's standards (2 Megabytes). You can also use a Zip
disk or a number of 3.5" diskettes for use
with this class, but they are not recommended, because they
are less dependable. Be sure to fully label all your
removable storage
with your name and contact information so the they can be returned to you
easily if lost. Some
students work directly on their portables in class, which is acceptable.
Others prefer to work directly onto a Linux server, which is also acceptable.
Backup of work
Remember that whenever you work with a computer, it is
possible to lose all your current work at any time. There are many
different ways to lose your work, including power outages, disk crashes, poor
naming and documentation strategies, and forgetfulness.
You always
must have back ups of all your work. How
you do that depends on your computer systems. At the minimum, you should
always keep copies of your files on a second dependable disk, either hard
disk, flash, a server, or a burned CD-R. I can not grade "vaporware" -- a
program that may have been really good, but you lost somehow.
Also, you should use Version Backups.
As described, Version Backups require only
about 10 seconds every 15 to 30 minutes while you are working, and they probably
will save you hours of work sometime during the semester. Just do
it!
It is a course requirement to keep good back-ups until after you have
received your grade for the semester.
