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Instructor:
Catherine Durso |
GTA:
Sada Narayanapa |
In this course we study elements of procedural programming, including data types, flow of control, functions, arrays, pointers and strings, and file input and output.
You are will learn design skills, programming skills, and debugging skills. You will also improve your communication skills, including documenting your programs, listening to and speaking about technical material, and reading texts to learn information independently.
This is a demanding course that requires significant time and energy. It provides a basis for writing moderate-scale programs. Writing such programs is a skill almost universally required of people working in applied technical fields, so the effort you apply now will serve you greatly in the future.
The lecture is held in CMK 309 at 2:00 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
If you are experienced in downloading information from the Internet, you may download the software directly. For Cygwin, select 'all' as the packages to download. For Gvim, use the 'typical' installation.
You will be evaluated based on weekly quizzes, homework assignments, programming projects, a midterm exam, and a final exam.
The quizzes will be given during the first five minutes of each Wednesday's class. They will be a quick closed book check on your awareness of the material covered the previous week.
Homework will be assigned and due approximately every two weeks. Please try the homework as soon as it is assigned. You'll be given an opportunity in class to ask questions about it.
Programming projects will be given about 4 times during the quarter.
There will be two exams in this course. The midterm exam will, tentatively, be given on Wednesday, October 19, in class. The cumulative final exam will be given on Saturday, November 19 from 2:00 to 3:45 p.m. in our regular classroom. This is the date determined by the registrar (see DU 2005 Fall Exam Schedule). Your enrollment in this class is a commitment to be available on that date.
Your attendance and class participation will be taken into account only in borderline cases.
The contributions of each type of work to your final grade are as follows:
evaluation type | total percent contribution |
---|---|
Quizzes | 10% |
Homework | 15% |
Projects | 25% |
Midterm | 25% |
Final Exam | 25% |
Grade cut-offs are as follows: A (90 to 100 points), B (78 to 89 points), C (66 to 77 points), D (51 to 65), F (50 and less). Further curving may only improve your grade.
Late Policy: A 5/100 marks deduction penalty will be applied every 24 hours after the due date. In special circumstances the penalty may be revoked, but I reserve the right to do so.
When you turn in work in this course, you are implicitly agreeing that you have followed the rules for collaboration set forth for that assignment. You should not view in any way another person's assignment, nor should you possess electronic copies or hard copies of another person's assignment before that assignment has been graded and returned.
If you are stuck with a problem, you are strongly encouraged to seek help of the Instructor or the Teaching Assistant. Discussion of homework problems with your colleagues (other than your teammate when working in pairs) should be limited to what the problem requires and not how to solve it. You may not use or copy all or part of someone else's work. When using material from other sources or publications (including the Internet), you must understand, acknowledge and include a reference to them. Failure to do so will affect your grade adversely. Please make sure you have read and understood the information available in the following web page:DU Honor Code
A total of about 5 homework assignments will be handed out. These assignments are individual work and you must not consult with any of your colleagues, excepting the Instructor and the Teaching Assistant. You are encouraged to type your solutions. Handwriting is accepted as long as I find it to be readable, understandable and organized.
Homework assignments are due before midnight on the date specified in the assignment hand out (and course calendar). If you type your solutions, you must submit them electronically in either .TXT, .PDF or .DOC formats to the Teaching Assistant, cc-ing the Instructor. Please follow the following format for electronic homework assignment submissions and file naming: email your code as an attached file to the course account,
comp1571"AT"cs"DOT"du"DOT"edu,
and name your file
(Your last name/names)_Hwk(homework assignment number).c
Approximately four projects will be assigned. You may be required to work alone on some and in pairs on some. You might be asked to present your work in class. A project involves the design and a partial or total implementation of your solution to a given computational requirement. Projects are due at the time and date specified in the assignment hand out. All projects must be submitted electronically. Please follow the following format for electronic project assignment submissions and file naming: email your code as an attached file to the course account,
comp1571"AT"cs"DOT"du"DOT"edu,
and name your file
(Your last name/names)_Prj(Project assignment number).c
Your program must work correctly to receive credit. A program which does not compile will receive little credit. A program which works partially will receive partial credit. Your score improves if you attach notes documenting the incompleteness or bugs (include details of the circumstances under which they occur), since this shows the degree to which you tested your code.
Your program should be formatted logically, and should be easy to read.Comment your code well - write comments that would be useful to someone who would have to debug, maintain or enhance your code. The quality of your comments is included in your grade.
The calendar below contains links to homework assignments, programming projects, examples from class, and important dates for you to keep in mind.
The cumulative final exam will be given on Saturday, November 19 from 2:00 to 3:45 p.m.