CSC-231m

Schedule

Homework assignments and projects will be due at the end of class on the Monday/Tuesday after they are assigned.

• Programming assignments will initially be short programs that build on the lecture topic. The first several will build on each other, that is, the second assignment will add features to the first and so on. Some early assignments will also require a short programming project.

• The second half of the course will feature longer, more intensive assignments.

• Programming projects will be similar to the assignments, however, the student will be designing a program that is similar to the one in the assignment. The purpose is to use the principles learned in the programming assignment in another program. While you may work with each other on these, each student must submit his or her own project. Projects that are too similar to the lab or too similar to anyone else’s will be marked down heavily.

Programming work may be submitted in class, during office hours, or via the mail box outside the CSC Department Office (Room 14-254), which is emptied each day at 4:00 PM and time/date-stamped. Lab work will not be accepted via e-mail at this time, and you should not put work under the door of my office either.

I have rearranged the assignments from individual assignments to weekly multi-part assignments. These include:

• Lab 1 — A simple header file, to learn how to use the editor.

• Lab 2 — A simple computational program.

• Lab 3 — Selective execution, Lab 2 with an artificial set of upper and lower limits, and a menu to select temperature scales.

• Lab 4 — Event-controlled loop, Lab 3 with a loop to allow repetitive execution, and counter-controlled loop with a loop to build a table of conversions.

• Lab 5 — Lab 4 with a function to perform the conversion, plus a change subroutine for the upcoming vending machine simulator.

• Lab 6 — The rest of the vending machine simulator.

• Lab 7 — An automatic teller machine simulation.

• Lab 8 — Reading and writing simple text files.

• Lab 9 — Integration or other assignment.

This schedule is subject to change, depending upon the interests of the students. Additional labs will be added to the lab manual as the course evolves.

There are several easy ways to lose points in lab. The first is to turn in your lab late, which will result in a 75% or 100% reduction in points. Each part of each lab is usually worth 10 points. Points will be deducted for the following:

• Failure to include a run file — 5 points.

• Failure to update a source file header — up to 3 points.

• Failure to include a source file header — 3 points.

• Failure to properly test a program — 2 points.

• Failure to fix a program error — 1 point per error.

• Submission package out of order — 1 point.

• Failure to follow directions — 5 points.

You have been warned. Resubmittal to regain lost points is not an option. Do it right the first time.

Each assignment will be somewhat routine and predefined. The intent of the programming project is to enable the student to write his or her own program similar to the assignment, one that may do something of interest to the student, or something different than the assignment example.

You will also be assigned a final programming project that must consist of a minimum of 100 SLOC (source lines of code). There will be options on this, including simply doing several simple program examples from the textbook. In the past, students have done as much as 1500 SLOC. Computer programming, like engineering, is often an affliction.

There will be five quizzes given in the lecture, with the lowest quiz score being dropped . Tentative quiz topics include:

• Basic input/output

• Data types

• Selective execution (if)

• Switch/case

• Event-controlled repetition (while)

• Counter-controlled repetition (for)

• Arrays

• Functions

Before each quiz there will be a brief review of the topic which I deviously call, “Short Attention Span Theater.” If you can remember stuff for five minutes, you will do very well on the quiz.

I attempt to make each assignment achievable in the allotted time, but sometimes assignments take longer. Deadlines MAY be extended, however, you should plan on turning in assignments ON TIME for full credit, or be penalized for late submittals. This course requires some amount of work outside of class. Get used to it.

The standard due date is at the end of the class meeting one week after it is assigned. Assignments left in the CSC wooden box by 4:00 will be time-stamped for the current day and not penalized. If an assignment is left after 4:00 PM, it will be time-stamped the next day and will be penalized 75%. Anything later than this will be penalized 100%. No exceptions!

The on-line lecture pages are HTML files with links to three versions of each lecture: Native PowerPoint, outline format in RTF (rich text format), and OpenOffice Impress format. I currently use OfficeXP, and files are saved in that format.

Lab assignments and handouts are published in the instructor’s lab manual, available from El Corral (should be on the shelf next to the textbook). There are errors in the lab manual which will be pointed out by the instructor and also noted on an Errata Sheet.

The CSC Department provides free tutoring for the CSC/CPE-101/2/3 students in Java, and can also offer help with C or C++. No MATLAB tutoring is currently available, although the other tutors MAY be able to help you. Your best bet here is to work with a lab partner or even a study group.

There may be up to 35 students in this course, and I teach multiple courses and sections. I am here to help you and I intend to do this. However, please understand that at times I will be spread pretty thin among you, so please be patient.

By all means call on me if you need help. You could ask another student for help, but you must consider that they may not know the answer either. Rather than “bother” another student, just kick back and patiently wait for me to get to you.