21369 CSC 1023N - 0 - Introduction to Computer Science Spring 2011 21369: Tuesday, Thursday, 1:45 pm - 3:06 pm , Brookhaven Campus A204 Herbert J. Bernstein ( ) Syllabus

This web page is http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC1023S11/CSC1023_Syllabus.html
Copyright © 2001 -- 2004, 2010, 2011 Herbert J. Bernstein and other parties. All rights reserved.

This is the syllabus for one section of CSC 1023N for Spring 2011. As the course moves forward, students should return to this page frequently for updated material.

Catalog descriptions:

This Syllabus is for the following Spring 2011 section:

Instructor:

• Name: Prof. Herbert J. Bernstein
• Office: KSC 121, Lab: KSC 020
• Phone: +1-631-244-3035
• Email:

Office Hours:

• Monday, Wednesday 12:30 pm -- 2 pm in KSC 020 at the Oakdale campus
• Tuesday, Thursday 1 pm - 1:30 pm in A 209 at the Brookhaven campus
• By specific appointment on Thursday, 5:30 pm to 6 pm in A 209 at the Brookhaven campus

Students in the Tuesday/Thursday afternoon classes who cannot attend the scheduled office hours should make an appointment with Dr. Bernstein by email or during a class break to talk at a mutually convenient time.

There will be no meeting of this class on Tuesday, 22 March 2011 (Spring Recess) There will be no meeting of this class on Thursday, 24 March 2011 (Spring Recess) There will be no meeting of this class on Tuesday, 18 April 2011 (Passover) There will be no meeting of this class on Thursday, 19 May 2011 (Friday Schedule)

Note that, in general, Dr. Bernstein will be at the Oakdale campus on Monday and Wednesday afternoons and at the Brookhaven campus on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Thursday evenings. If at all possible, please use email to schedule meetings in advance to avoid conflicts with other students and other obligations of the instructor.

For more information see http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/HJB_Contact_Info.html.

Required Text:

• Michael Dawson, "Python: Programming for the Absolute Beginner," Third Edition, Course Technology PTR, 2010, Cengage Learning, Boston, ISBN 978-1-4354-5500-9
• Carl Reynolds and Paul Tymann, "Schaum's Outlines, Principles of Computer Science", McGraw-Hill, 2008, Boston, ISBN 978-0-07-146051-4

Students are advised to bring the required texts to every meeting of the class to help them in answering the daily quiz questions.

Recommended Reading:

The following text is recommended for all prospective computer science majors

• Knuth, D, "The Art of Computer Programming", Vols 1-3, 2nd ed., Boxed set, Addison Wesley, 1998, ISBN 0-201-48541-9.

This three volume set is an essential reference for any serious computer scientist. There will be no specific assignments from Knuth, but reading it may well help in understanding the required text and the lectures and to get ready for a career in Computer Science.

Required Supplies:

Keeping clear written records is an important part of working in any scientific field. It is particularly important in Computer Science, where there are very complex, non-obvious decisions to make.

Students are expected to have their text books no later than the third meeting of the class.

Attendance:

Attendance will be taken at all class meetings. All absences must be explained in writing (or via email). Students who miss 2 or more lectures must meet with the instructor to review their progress in the course. Students who miss more than 2 lectures prior to the midterm will get a midterm warning and will be advised to withdraw from the course. Grades will be reduced for unexcused absences (see grading policy, below).

Grading Policy:

• Graded assignments and daily quizzes: 10%
• Course project: 20%
• Midterm: 30%
• Comprehensive Final: 40%

All students will be required to actively participate in classroom discussions. Many assignments will be given for drill. Students will be shown how to set up a minimal web site early in the course. All completed assignments must be posted on the student's web page by the due date. Students will be required to "turn in" some of those assignments for grading by sending an email with the appropriate URLs. Students will be given daily brief quizzes related to, but not necessarily identical to, earlier assignments. Quizzes will often be based on the assigned readings, asking questions that have not yet been discussed in class. This is intended to encourage students to do the assigned readings.

The daily quizzes are open-notes quizzes, but that won't do much good if you have not done the reading assignments and placed notes about what you have read into your notebook. There will be no makeups for these quizzes.

Every student will be required to maintain a contemporaneous hardbound notebook recording all significant activities related to this course. The notebook should record the major topics discussed, questions about the subject matter of the course and the answers when they are found, and all activities related to the course project (see below). The instructor will borrow the notebooks several times during the semester and grade them for thoroughness, clarity and relevance to the course. Only the portions of the notebook that are dated, written in the student's own hand and on the permanent pages of the notebook will be acceptable for use during the midterm and final.

IMPORTANT: No other reference materials will be permitted during the midterm and final. Only the graded notebook(s) written in the student's own hand will be permitted as a reference during the midtem and final. The textbooks will NOT be allowed as references during the midterm and final.

Students will be required to complete a course-related web page programming project, which is to be done as an individual programming effort.

An open-notes, open computer/calculator midterm and an open-notes, open computer/calculator final will be given. In general, no assignments will be accepted late and no makeups will be given for missed quizzes or examinations. Requests for exceptions to this policy will be considered only for the most pressing reasons (illness requiring hospitalization, death in the family, reserve call-up, etc.), must be submitted in writing or by email in a timely manner, and will be granted only if the instructor has sound reason to believe that the student is highly likely to master the material of the course within the current semester.

Course Syllabus

The syllabus and the course objectives that follow are derived in part from the IEEE/ACM "Computing Curricula 2001 Computer Science" - Final Report - (December 15, 2001) by the Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula, IEEE Computer Society, Association for Computing Machinery.

• Administrative matters
  • Dowling student accounts.
  • Linux accounts.
    • Setting up a web page.
  • Diagnostic Quiz.
• Overview of the course
• Introduction to Professional Issues: Ethical issues; fiduciary responsibility; Murphy's Law; KISS.
• Solving problems with computers
• Background
  • History of computing
  • Introduction to the Web and HTML
  • Creating a personal web page
  • Introduction to programming
  • Overview of programming languages and the compilation process
  • Basic organization of the von Neumann machine
• Fundamental programming constructs
• Introduction to Python syntax
• Relationships among Python, C, C++, Java, JavaScripts, PHP and HTML
• Software development methodology
• Fundamental concepts used in programming
• Algorithms and problem-solving
• Fundamental data structures
• Decision-making. The if statement and the if-else statement
  e.g. craps.html
• Loops; while loops and for loops
• Lists and Dictionaries
  e.g. convert_story.py
• Using Python on the web
  • Passing arguments to a Python CGI script
  • Active Web Pages
• Functions
• I/O
• Objects
  • critter_caretaker_2.py
  • critter_caretaker_3.py
  • blackjack2.py
• Graphics
  • example from text: pizza_panic.py
    chef.bmp
    pan.bmp
    pizza.bmp
    wall.bmp
    livewires for Python 3, livewires.zip
    livewires for Python 2, livewires_25.zip
    pygame installer
    

Course Objectives

• Understanding what computers are and how they are used in the modern world.
• Understanding what programmers and computer scientists do.
• Understanding professional responsibilities of a programmer and the limitations of hardware and software.
• Understanding the contributions of several pioneers in the computing field.
• Understanding the difference in daily life before and after the advent of personal computers and the Internet.
• Understanding significant continuing trends in the history of the computing field.
• Understanding the concepts of the Internet and of the World Wide Web.
• Understanding how to create web pages.
• Understanding how to create computer programs.
• Being able to modify and expand short program fragments that use standard conditional and iterative control structures and methods.
• Understanding the meaning of primitive data types.
• Understanding the meaning of lists and other data structures.
• Being able to choose appropriate conditional and iteration constructs for a given programming task.
• Understanding the mechanics of parameter passing.
• Understanding the relationship between algorithms and the problem-solving process.
• Understanding properties that contribute to algorithms being "good".
• Being able to create algorithms for solving simple problems.
• Being able to use pseudo code, charts/graphs or a programming language to implement, test, and debug algorithms for solving simple problems.
• Understanding strategies that are useful in debugging.

Assessable Learning Outcomes

All of the course objectives stated above are desired learning outcomes, and students should strive of achieve all of them. Certain objectives, however, are strong indicators of having mastered most of the remaining objectives. The following will explicitly be assessed:

• Understanding the professional responsibilities of a programmer and the limitations of hardware and software.
• Understanding the concepts of the Internet and of the World Wide Web.
• Understanding how to create web pages.
• Being able to modify and expand short program fragments that use standard conditional and iterative control structures and methods.
• Understanding the meaning of primitive data types.
• Understanding the meaning of lists and other data structures.
• Being able to choose appropriate conditional and iteration constructs for a given programming task.
• Understanding the relationship between algorithms and the problem-solving process.
• Being able to create algorithms for solving simple problems

In addition, basic learning skills, critical thinking, a scholarly approach to learning and diligent attention to all the material presented in lectures, in readings and available to the student from other sources are assessable outcomes of this course.

Projects

Each student will be expected to display a solid grasp of the concepts of the design of web pages with active content by creating a web-based project. Each student will work on his or her own project. Each student will be required to explain to demonstrate their project to the class, explain how it works, and to respond to questions from the class and from the instructor on the project. Students may propose their own project no later than the 4th week of class. If no project is proposed, the instructor will assign a project.

Prerequisites

Any work with computers requires some background in mathematical concepts and logical reasoning. The skills in the DVM0001 course description are needed to be able to cope with the material presented. Creating web pages is a form of creative writing. Students must have sound skills in speaking, reading and writing English. There will be an ungraded diagnostic quiz given during the first lecture to help students understand how well prepared they are for the work in this course.

If students' English and math skills are weak or nonexistent they may have serious difficulty doing the assignments for the course. In that case, intensive tutoring and/or delaying taking this course until their skills are better aligned to the demands of the course may be worth considering. Students with questions about their English and math skills should discuss the matter with the instructor.

Assigments

Please consult the course assigments page frequently.

Secure Remote Access with GUI

Using VNC via SSH: vnc.html

Dowling Computer Club

If you're interested in joining with your fellow students in developing and maintaining a web site, or pursuing your exploration of computer hardware or software, you might want to consider joining the Dowling Computer Club. Just follow the link for further details:

Dowling College Computer Club Web Site