General Information

College is your last chance to learn how to learn by yourself, without pressure from parents, teachers, or peers. You want to learn that, because the quality of your life depends on it. Your life. Nothing more, nothing less.

Naturally, we understand that you want some feedback, both in terms of specific corrections and in terms of a grade. You want feedback so that you can improve your learning process. And we will give you that feedback. It is our end of the bargain. Your end is to demonstrate that you actually study the methods we teach so that they become second nature. After all, you don’t want to waste your time, and we don’t want to waste ours either.

So, if you wish to earn a grade in this course, you must complete the contract and sign it in Blackboard, during your first lab session (2501). Your signature acknowledges that you have read these notes and understood the contract between you and the course staff.

Staff

Class

Labs

The course comes with ten lab sections. The labs start January 21, 2015.

Lab		Instructor		Time		Days		Location
1		Mimi Lin		11:45-1:25		W		WVH 210
2		Julia Ebert		2:50-4:30		W		WVH 210
3		Pedro Silva		11:45-1:25		R		WVH 210
4		Elín Carstensdóttir		2:50-4:30		R		WVH 210
5		Elín Carstensdottir		9:50-11:30		F		WVH 210

You signed up for a lab section during registration; if you need to change your choice, you must go to the registrar and change it there.

The purpose of labs is to give you some hands-on experience with the actual tools, and to explain some of the principles from lecture with hands-on examples.

Computing Environment

We will use DrRacket v6.1.1, a programming environment for a family of programming languages. For Fundamentals I, we will stick to the HtDP teaching languages plus a small number teachpacks. DrRacket is installed on the CCS computers.We urge you to download DrRacket to your own computer so that you can work on CS 2500 wherever, whenever you like. It is also freely available on the web in case you wish install it on your own computer.

DrRacket runs on most popular platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other *nixes). Programs written in the teaching languages have mostly the same behavior on all platforms. You therefore do not need to worry what kind of machine you use when you run your programs.

Problem Sets

The purpose of the problem sets is to prepare you for the exams.

There will be weekly problem sets. Some problems are drawn from HtDP, the textbook; others are constructed for this instance of Fundamentals I.

Pair Programming

You must work on your problem sets (2–12) in assigned pairs. Your partner will be in your lab, and your lab TA will assign you a partner. Every few weeks, you will get a new partner.

Pair programming means that you and your partner work on the problem sets jointly. You read them together and you work on the solutions together. One of the lab’s purposes is to teach you how to work in pairs effectively; indeed, pairs are provably more effective than individuals in programming. The rough idea is this: One of you plays pilot, the other co-pilot—looks. The pilot works on the keyboard and explains aloud what is going on; it is the co-pilot’s responsibility to question everything. After a problem is solved to the satisfaction of both, you must switch roles.

Exams and Quizzes

The exams will test material similar to that assigned in weekly problem sets. If you can solve every homework problem on your own, the exams will be easy. If not, you will have a difficult time.

We will have the daily quiz. It is our one concession to your “high school thinking.” Consider it a crutch for your self-discipline. Each week we will select at most one of these quizzes on a random basis for grading; the rest will get thrown away.

Grades