Here you can find the course news, reproduced from the individual
outlines.
Wednesday, April 18, 2001:
Notes
- Reading for tomorrow: Searching
Methods.
- Expect to see the next homework assignment released this afternoon.
- Advance warning: Mr. Walker will be observing class next week. He's
visiting in preparation for my tenure review.
- Yes, I'm hoping to hand back exam 2
next Monday (if not before).
- I recently received a survey about minors at Grinnell. I'd like to hear
a little bit about your opinions on the matter.
- Do you want minors?
- If so, why?
- Preregistration is coming soon, and some of you wanted to know
about what to take next year.
- Standard Math option for prospective CS majors: MAT215 (Linear
Algebra) in the fall, MAT218 (Combinatorics) in the spring.
- Standard CS option for prospective CS majors: CSC152 (aka "Data
Structures and Algorithms in Java") in the fall,
CSC223 (aka "Software Design") in the spring. This schedule
is also applicable for people who just want some more CS.
- Preferred CS option for prospective CS majors: CSC195 (aka "Under the
Hood with C") in the fall, CSC152 in the spring. This schedule is
also applicable for people who just want more CS.
- Insane option: CSC152 and CSC195 in the fall; CSC223 in the spring.
- Other options: E-Commerce in the spring (not in schedule of courses
yet); CSC341 in the spring; electronics in the fall.
- Even more options: Whoever is serving as visiting professor in the
fall will be teaching a special topics course. We're currently
debating who to hire and what the prereqs will be.
Monday, April 16, 2001:
Assignments
Due
Notes:
- Nope, no reading for Wednesday.
- I have not looked at my email since 10am Friday. I'll try to get
to it this afternoon.
- There's a reception for Irve Dell at 4:15 today in the Math
Lounge. Celebrate our new art!
- There's a cool talk about computer graphics at 4:30 tomorrow with
a short reception at 4:15. I hope to see you there.
- I'm not sure how long it will take me to grade exam 2.
- Homework 6 will be ready on Wednesday and due a week from Friday. There
will be two alternatives. (1) Write a new lab for GIMP. (2) Design a
Web service. I'll try to have some more info on GIMP and a sample
service ready for Wednesday.
Friday, April 13, 2001:
Notes
- No reading this weekend.
- Beware, Friday the 13th falls on a Friday this month.
- I added some comments on
partition in
the reading.
- Are there any final questions on exam 2?
- I will not be available for questions over the weekend.
- You may not talk to each other about the exam or about Scheme over
the weekend.
-
map! probably shouldn't return anything, but it's
fine if it returns the modified vector.
- I don't think I've received any other new questions, so I may have
resolved all of them.
Thursday, April 12, 2001:
Notes
- For tomorrow, read
Procedures that Return
Multiple Values.
- Monday, April 16 at 4:15 p.m. in Noyce Science Center 2400, join artist
Irve Dell, the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, and
the Faulconer Gallery to celebrate the installation of permanent art
works in the Math/CS stairwell.
- Only today and tomorrow for questions on
exam 2
- Question 1: Grading
- What should you do about fractional grades? Round them.
- How do you write to a file? Here's some sample code.
(let ((outport (open-output-file "example")))
(display "Hello There" outport)
(newline outport)
(display "Okay, now I'm done" outport)
(newline outport)
(close-output-port outport))
- Question 3: Currying
- I'd prefer if you wrote
cmember? directly,
rather than implementing it with a call to member.
- The name of
cmember? suggests that it returns
only #t or #f.
Wednesday, April 11, 2001:
Notes
- The questions on exam 2 just keep on
coming.
- Problem 1: Grading
- Each line of the input file is a list.
- The file itself is not a list.
- You can assume that the first three elements of each list
are first-name, last-name, and e-mail.
- You can assume that the remaining values are all numbers.
- The infile and outfile parameters are strings that name files.
- You will call your procedure with something like:
(process-grades "/home/rebelsky/Web/CS151/Examples/samplegrades"
"maxgradereport"
(lambda (grades) (apply max grades)))
(process-grades "/home/rebelsky/Web/CS151/Examples/samplegrades"
"151grades"
(lambda (grades)
(divide (- (sum grades) (min grades))
(- (length grades) 1))))
- Problem 2: Mapping on Lists
- No, you cannot use
(list->vector (map proc (vector->list vec)))
- Problem 3: Currying
- For
c-right-section, the typical call will be
somethings like
> ((cexpt 3) 2)
9
> ((cexpt 2) 3)
8
> (define square ((c-right-section cexp) 2))
> (square 3)
9
- Yes, one of the results for
cmax was incorrect.
Monday, April 9, 2001:
Notes
- Anne is changing tonight's office hours to 7:30-8:30.
- For Wednesday, read
Variable-Arity Procedures.
- As some of you have noted, I regularly make PDF files for readings and
labs. Does anyone use those? Does anyone want to?
- Are there questions on the exam?
- I'd recommend that you break problem 1 up into parts, and do each
part separately.
- You can have a precondition in problem 1 that states the maximum
length of a first or last name. (Extra credit for handling an
arbitrary width.)
- You may want to review the string procedures for hints on how
to do left- and right- justification.
- For problem 2, I want you to change the vector given
as a parameter, and not return a new vector.
- Here's what I expected for intersect:
(define intersect
(lambda (set1 set2)
((remove (complement (right-section member set2))) set1)))
- In English: Remove from set1 all values that are not in set 2.
- Why did I give this problem? Because I wanted you to see that
the higher-order procedures give us a very different way of thinking
about problem solving. Once you've written good helpers, your
first inclination no longer has to be one that involves a
standard recursive pattern.
Friday, April 6, 2001:
Assignments
Due
Notes
- I thought I'd spend a few minutes talking about the intersection
problem and why it was on the homework.
- Bring questions on exam 2
next week!
Thursday, April 5, 2001:
Notes
- A few of you asked about the construction of groups.
- I tried to break up the east and west cliques.
- I tried to form same-gender groups (research shows that women
do better in same-gender groups and men do nearly equivalently
well in same-gender or mixed-gender groups).
- Are there any final questions on
homework 5?
- Your
intersect procedure should not recurse on itself.
However, you may call helper procedures that do recursion or create
recursive procedures.
- A few of you noted that by using
ADD rather than
REPLACE in your selection commands, you can create very
interesting selections.
- I will distribute exam 2 tomorrow. It will be due a week from
the following Monday.
Wednesday, April 4, 2001:
Notes
- Are there questions on homework 5?
- A few of you have asked about the
sum we did in class.
We did that version of sum on the first day we studied
recursion. The key idea was that we used a helper function that took
an extra parameter that kept track of the sum of the first k numbers
in the list. You can see a newer version of the code (that uses
all the clever design tricks we've learned) in
sum.ss
- Many of you were stumped by the intersection problem (number 6).
My first solution used the rule that A intersect B is
A-(A-B). Mr. Stone suggested that he was looking for a more
elegant solution and indicated that
complement
would be useful. For a predicate, p, complement
returns the "opposite" predicate (one that returns false when p
returns true and vice versa). Here's a definition sans comment
(define complement
(lambda (pred?)
(lambda (val) (not (pred? val)))))
- Here are some potentially useful links for your exploration of GIMP
and Script-Fu
Monday, April 2, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- I hope you had a great break and that you're refreshed and ready
for the remaining weeks of the semester.
- The trip to London went well.
- However, it appears that someone broke into my office during break and
took my Powerbook and DV camera. If you saw anything suspicious,
please report it to me or campus security.
- Reminder: I will distribute exam 2 on Friday. (I'll probably work on
it tomorrow.)
- I've nearly finished grading the late exams, but want to do some
checking. I should have them available in my office for much of
tomorrow.
- A candidate for the visiting position in CS is speaking tonight.
I'm less inclined to have you attend because it looks like it will
be a very mathematical talk.
- As promised, I've come up with new groups for post-break. As you
can tell, I've tried to mix up the sides of the room. You must
work with your partner for the next two weeks. After that, you can
let me know if you'd prefer to work alone or want me to mix up groups
again.
- Roger and Katherine
- Kabenla and Aaron
- Samarth and Greg
- Anna and Natalia
- Sara and Sarah
- Brad and Daniel
- Anthony F. and Tony S.
- Patty and Amanda
- Alex and Muhammad
- Peter and George
- Katya and Marie
- Ammar and Jim S.
- Audrey and Xylina
- Ananta and Matthew
- Laura and Rob
Friday, March 16, 2001:
Notes
- Please turn in your writeup via blackboard or email it to
Greg Fuller.
- I leave for my trip immediately after class today, and won't be able
to answer questions then. Sorry.
- The next assignment will be the lab on
More Higher-Order Procedures.
If you have nothing better to do during break, you may want to start
on it.
Thursday, March 15, 2001:
Notes
- Yes, we will have class tomorrow (even though I'm leaving for London
at 11:30).
- I'd like you to try to do (or at least scan) two readings tonight:
- I saw three ways that people wrote the
last-element
procedure from yesterday's lab. They seem to be good examples for
discussing some tradeoffs in program design.
(let ((last-element (lambda (lst)
(car (reverse lst)))))
...)
(let ((last-element (lambda (lst)
(list-ref lst (- (length lst) 1)))))
...)
(letrec ((last-element (lambda (lst)
(if (null? (cdr lst))
(car lst)
(last-element (cdr lst))))))
...)
Wednesday, March 14, 2001:
Notes
- There is no reading for tomorrow. Tomorrow's topic is sufficiently
complex that I would prefer to introduce it with a lecture.
- I still haven't finished updating
the additional notes on
let. I hope to have them ready for tomorrow.
- There was some misunderstanding of how to use Blackboard. You submit
files in a two-big-step process.
- First, you add the file to your drop box. This makes it available
to you, but not to me. (Some people like to keep their temporary
files in a drop box.)
- Second, you submit the file. You can tell if something in
your drop box is submitted because it no longer has a "Remove"
button and because the text reads "Submitted ...".
- I thought it would be helpful to look at one inelegant but primarily
correct
solution to the
count-odd-rolls question. This person,
like many of you, reflected on the possibility of using
roll-die as a helper. Unfortunately, the solution
does much more work than it needs to
(define count-odd-rolls
(lambda (n)
; If you roll 0 dice, then you can have 0 odd numbers.
(if (= n 0) 0
; Otherwise ...
(let ((dice (roll-dice n))) ; Roll some dice
; See if the first one is odd
(if (odd? (car dice))
; If so, count it and then do the rest
(+ 1 (count-odd-rolls (- n 1)))
; Otherwise, just cound the remaining odd
; rolls
(count-odd-rolls (- n 1)))))))
- No, I won't tell you what's wrong with it.
- I will suggest that you can observe one problem if you
update
roll-dice to print a short note each time it
is called.
- We can improve the procedure with an appropriate
let.
Monday, March 12, 2001:
Due
Assignments
Notes
- I spent much of the weekend working on taxes. Oh, what fun. Hence,
I did not get exams graded. It looks like those of you who turned
in exams late will have to wait until after break (as I said you
might).
- I may be playing with the syllabus this week.
- Those of you who want to spend some of break getting ahead can
check out the course at a
glance and then look for the readings from last semester or
from one of the other sections of the course.
- Note that week 9 (on GIMP) is all new.
- A few of you asked for more information on
let. I've
started a short handout.
Friday, March 9, 2001:
Due
Notes
- A number of you sent email at 3 am saying ``please, can't we have
an extension?''
- It strikes me that many of you waited until last night to start
the assignment (but I could be wrong).
- Yes, you can have an extension until Monday. However, this
extension only applies to those who show up for class today.
(And yes, I'll make a list.)
- Since break starts next Friday, I assume many of you have a number
of exams and assignments to complete next week. Hence, I won't
have a homework due next week. (I will still have a lab writeup
due next week.)
Thursday, March 8, 2001:
Notes
- I've scanned the surveys (and will probably do another scan this weekend).
- As you might expect, there were opposite answers on a lot of questions.
- For example, about 1/4 of you want more lecture and about 1/4 of you
want less lecture.
- There does seem to be some inverse correlation between your opinion of
the complexity of the course and your desire for lecture.
- To that, I respond that ``You can't learn to ride a bike by
watching someone else.''
- Are there questions on homework 4?
- Lists should certainly be surrounded by parentheses.
- Almost everything else is up for grabs as long as it's readable
and you clearly document what you're doing.
- Please don't use hacks involving
write and
display.
- Are there any questions on lab
writeup 2?
- Don't forget, cool convo talk today; cool CS talk this afternoon.
- Yup, tomorrow's reading is delayed. It's been a bad week.
Wednesday, March 7, 2001:
Notes
- I've written a short survey for you
to fill out.
- Fill out the survey.
- Trade it for a donut (optional) and a graded exam.
- As that suggests, I've graded exam 1.
- Well, to be more precise, I've graded the exams that were turned in at
9 a.m. last Friday. The other exams will be returned next Monday (or
so I hope).
- I've also prepared some notes on the
exam.
- If your exam reads Please See Me, please see me or email
me after class or this afternoon. Otherwise, I'll convert your grade
to a 0.
- I strongly discourage you from discussing your grade with your colleagues.
You should feel satisfied (or dissatisfied) with your grade based on your
own assessment of what you know and what you think you should know.
- Are there any questions on homework 4?
- Are there any questions on lab writeup 2?
- The strange association list question assumes that each entry in your
association list has the form
((key1 key2 key3) value)
For example,
(define people
(list (list (list 'sam 'michelle 'william 'jonathan 'tbd) 'rebelsky)
(list (list 'john 'barbara 'neal 'sophia) 'stone)
(list (list 'ben 'suzette) 'gum)
(list (list 'henry 'terry 'barbara) 'walker)))
(define majors
(list (list (list 'recursive 'complex 'dual-brained 'mathematical) 'cs)
(list (list 'world-describing 'mathematical 'first-name) 'physics)
(list (list 'mathematical 'applicable 'monetary) 'economics)))
- Once again, I'm behind in preparing readings. I'll send out email if
I finally get the reading done.
Monday, March 5, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Please do not use ``input'' as a verb.
- I expect to have all the copies of
exam 1 turned in by the end of the day
today, so I'll get them back to you by Wednesday.
- Let me know if you have not turned in your exam.
- There are two ways for you to get extra credit on exam 2 this Thursday
(the opportunities are Thursday; exam 2 isn't until after break).
- Attend the alumni scholars talk by Lea Wittie on debugging.
- Attend the convocation talk by Professor Roberts. (He's an interesting
and outspoken fellow; he's already sent a letter criticizing the
laptop proposal to Dean S.)
- A few of you have noted that it would be helpful to have a helper
function that prints a request for information, reads a value, and then
returns the value read. Here's one possibility:
;;; Procedure:
;;; read-value
;;; Parameters:
;;; prompt, a string
;;; Purpose:
;;; Prints a request for information, reads a value, and returns
;;; the value read.
;;; Produces:
;;; val, a value. (Can be any type of value.)
;;; Preconditions:
;;; It is still possible to print output to the standard output port.
;;; It is still possible to read input from the standard input port.
;;; prompt is a string.
;;; Postconditions:
;;; Additional text may have appeared on output.
;;; A value will have been read from input.
;;; val is the value that was read from input.
(define read-value
(lambda (prompt)
(display prompt)
(read)))
- I'm expecting that some will eventually want a procedure that
reads only numbers. Here's one example.
;;; Procedure:
;;; read-number
;;; Parameters:
;;; prompt, a string
;;; Purpose:
;;; Print a request for information and repeatedly read a value
;;; until a number is entered.
;;; Produces:
;;; val, a number
;;; Preconditions:
;;; It is still possible to print output to the standard output port.
;;; It is still possible to read input from the standard input port.
;;; prompt is a string.
;;; Postconditions:
;;; Additional text will have appeared on output.
;;; One or more values will have been read from input.
;;; The first number entered after this procedure is called will
;;; be returned.
(define read-number
; Helper: Print an error message and try again
(let ((failure (lambda (prompt val)
(display "That wasn't a number!")
(newline)
(read-number prompt))))
(lambda (prompt)
(display prompt)
; Read a value
(let ((val (read)))
(if (number? val)
val
(failure prompt val))))))
Friday, March 2, 2001:
Assignments
Due
Notes
- Yesterday went badly, so I have neither a reading for today nor a
reading for Monday. I apologize.
- To make it up to you, I've brought donuts.
- The lab writeup is also delayed, but it should be ready within
a few minutes after class.
- Because of the lack of readings, today's class and Monday's class
may go a little bit differently than normal (hey, what else is new?).
Thursday, March 1, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Don't forget the cool cs talks today at 4:30 in 2413
- How to add notes to other people's pages
- Big brother is watching your Web usage
- There's a Computer Science Alumni talk next Thursday (March 8) at 4:30
(I'm not sure where) entitled Aspirin for the Debugging Headache.
You can receive five points of extra credit on exam 2 by attending.
- Are there any new questions on
exam 1?
- If you send me email that has a question about the exam or a request
for an extension, please include the word HELP or
QUESTION in the title.
- You can view the amazing laptop proposal at
http://www.grinnell.edu/its/Planning/index.html
(that link appears to work only on campus)
- Our blackboard server is down today, so don't expect to be able to
do anything on it.
- Tomorrow's reading on input and output
won't be ready until late this afternoon. Sorry. I'll try to send out
email when it's ready.
Wednesday, February 28, 2001:
Notes
- Are there further questions on
exam 1?
- Yes, the first problem is probably the hardest.
- Yes, I'll grade you on elegance.
- Warning: Those of you who receive extensions may find that their
exams are not graded until after break.
- There is no reading for tomorrow. I'll provide a short introduction
to the topic at the beginning of tomorrow's class and may make an
additional reading available if there is confusion on the topic.
- I've updating some formatting on the course web. Let me know if
you encounter difficulties.
- Warning! The code in today's outline was sketched and not tested.
It may be partially or completely incorrect.
Wednesday, February 28, 2001:
Notes
- Are there further questions on
exam 1?
- Yes, the first problem is probably the hardest.
- Yes, I'll grade you on elegance.
- Warning: Those of you who receive extensions may find that their
exams are not graded until after break.
- There is no reading for tomorrow. I'll provide a short introduction
to the topic at the beginning of tomorrow's class and may make an
additional reading available if there is confusion on the topic.
- I've updating some formatting on the course web. Let me know if
you encounter difficulties.
- Warning! The code in today's outline was sketched and not tested.
It may be partially or completely incorrect.
Monday, February 26, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Are there questions on exam 1?
- You do not have to document helper procedures with the same
care that you document primary procedures. However, you should
make it a habit to document all of your procedures at least
a little bit.
- There seemed to be some confusion about problem 3a. I've updated
the question to help alleviate that confusion.
- Sorry about the system problems on Friday.
Friday, February 23, 2001:
Assignments
Due
Notes
- I'll spend a few minutes going over some of the stranger problems from
recent labs. Let me know if you have questions.
- There have been enough questions on the "count pairs" problem that
I'll go over the solution en masse.
- If we run out of time, I will not postpone today's lab
until Monday; I will expect you to do it on your own.
- Yes, I screwed up the output on the extra credit problem on the
list recursion lab. You can
take the weekend to redo it if you want.
Thursday, February 22, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- A few of the CS majors and I were discussing you folks, particularly
the problems you're having with CGI. They wanted to tell me that it
seems to them that you know much more than they did at this point in
their careers. So ... congratulations! and don't be too stressed
about it.
- Are there any final questions on
homework 3 or
lab writeup 1?
- Yes, you are allowed to rely on (and write) helper procedures when
you write your own procedures.
- Don't forget today's really cool CS talk: ``I can change your Web
page and you can't do anything about it'' (known more formally
as ``Web Raveler: Architectures for Transforming Web pages'').
Wednesday, February 21, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Reminder: You should either do
homework 3 or
laboratory writeup 1.
- You should, however, look over both.
- I'm pretty sure that the first exam will include some ideas
from the homework and the writeup.
- Are there questions on either?
- Reminder: I will distribute exam 1 on Friday and it will be due
the following Friday.
- Don't forget the cool talk on Thursday at 4:30, ``I can change
your Web page and you can't do anything about it'' (known more
formally as ``Web Raveler: An Infrastructure for Transforming
Web Pages''.
- There still seem to be some serious questions about how CGI works,
so we'll spend a few more minutes going over the philosophy and the
practice.
Monday, February 19, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- How long are the labs taking you? I've heard some reports that some of
you spent about five hours on the recursion lab
in addition to the three class periods we spent on the lab.
- Some of you have shown some frustration that Anne and I tend to
say "okay, let's reflect on XXX" rather than "just put X here"
(and, admittedly, Anne's better at it than I am).
- There's a reason we don't just give you the answer: If we give
you the answer, you're not likely to learn much; if we show you how
to solve it, you'll be able to solve similar problems.
- Remember the philosophy that someone who receives a fish eats
for a day; someone who learns to fish eats for a lifetime.
(Apologies to vegetarians.)
- Are there questions on homework 3?
- I'm guest-teaching Mr. Walker's CSC153 class this week (at 8am; yech),
so I may seem even more harried than normal. Sorry.
- This Thursday at 4:15, a group of my summer research students will
be speaking about their research project, which involves changing
other people's Web pages. It's some pretty cool stuff, and I hope to
see you there.
- For those of you interested in taking a peek at what your colleagues
did for
homework 2, here's what I know
about (if you're not listed, send me your URL).
Friday, February 16, 2001:
Due
Assignments
Notes
- On the days when homeworks are due, I get a lot of email whose
title is simply "Homework" or "Homework 2" or whatever. I file
those away until I'm ready to grade. If you need help on a homework,
please title your message Help on Homework or
something similar.
- Many of you clearly did not finish HW2 (or at least didn't get it
working).
- You need to start earlier.
- You may have an extension until Monday.
- However, you do still have other work to do for the course.
- I'll do my best to get HW2 graded over the weekend. I again
plan to post my comments publically.
- You have two assignments for next Friday, a lab writeup and a homework.
- Some people were confused about the take home: I'm distributing it
next Friday.
Thursday, February 15, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Are there any final questions on
homework 2? Here are
some things that have come up during times I've helped people:
- If you want to share code between Scheme files, save as a
Scheme file (e.g.,
shared.ss) and include
at the top of the files that use that code. (Substitute
whatever name you choose.)
- When you do the same thing again and again and again, you
should write a helper procedure.
- For example, I expected a helper procedure for
build a hidden field.
- How much time has the homework been taking you?
- You may find that tutors (other than Ms. F) won't always
understand how you're approaching a problem because we've
started CSC151 differently this semester.
- A few of you have asked for printed handouts that describe all
of the standard Scheme procedures. Since I write the 6P versions
on the fly, I can't give you a handout in that form. However, I've
made some copies of the standard Scheme report, which gives
abbreviated defintions. Let me know if you'd like a copy.
- Note that you can always access the Scheme report through
DrScheme's help system.
Wednesday, February 14, 2001:
Notes
- Are there questions on homework 2?
- Happy valentines day!
- We'll spend a few days on recursion, so don't worry if you don't
get it all today.
Monday, February 12, 2001:
Assignments
Friday, February 9, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- The homework link does not currently work. Here's the summary:
Do something interesting with CGI (in Scheme!). Your program must
include conditionals.
- Monday's reading deals with one of the most challenging issues in
151, recursion. Be prepared to reread it a few times.
Thursday, February 8, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Tonight's reading is a little bit more complicated than most.
Don't worry if you don't get it all; things will become clearer
(I hope) in lab.
- Are there any questions on the
reading on strings?
Wednesday, February 7, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
Monday, February 5, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- I've made yet another update to the schedule. Today we'll continue
our exploration of conditionals with lab. Wednesday you'll have the
chance to ask questions on the two labs (so prepare some!).
- I've brought in remnants of the infamous Rebelsky ground hog's day
party; I hopeyou enjoy them.
- This Thursday at 4:15, I'll be giving a talk on summer
opportunities in Computer Science. While you're probably not eligible,
if you're thinking about being a CS major, it may be worth coming to
hear what the future has in store.
Friday, February 2, 2001:
Due
Notes
- No readings for the weekend! Monday is a catch-up day in which we'll
work on the lab and discuss some of the more confusing problems.
- I'll try to leave most of the refletion for Monday.
- You should still try to work on the labs (at least a little) over
the weekend.
- Be sure to make fun of Grinnell seniors for their inability to count.
- The 100 days party is 107 days before graduation.
- Only 1 in 7 years can the 100 days party be precisely 100 days
before graduation. This year was one of them, and they blew it!
- Are there questions on the reading
on Boolean values or
the reading on
conditional evaluation?
- Since Scheme ignores whitespace, you have a lot of freedom in how
you format your code. Please please please try to format your code
so that it's readable (no long lines, indent like DrScheme tells
you to, ...).
- I've received homework 1
from many of you. If you'd like to check out what your colleagues
did, here are some URLs:
- I'll set up a page with links to these sites (and my comments on the
sites, unless anyone objects).
Thursday, February 1, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Tutoring will be available Sunday through Thursday nights from
9:00-10:00 p.m. in the Computer Equipped Classroom (Science 2435).
- John Emmons Sundays
- Anne Feltovich Mondays
- Greg Fuller Tuesdays
- Ming Gu Wednesdays
- Anne Feltovich Thursdays
- While personal tutors are also available for CS151, I'd prefer that
you wait until after the first exam to ask for a tutor.
- Reminder: homework 1 is
due tomorrow at the start of class.
- A few of you have asked me about what you'll be expected to do for
labs. I'll assign a few required lab questions each week (after
you've completed the labs) and ask you to turn them in a few days
later.
- I've slightly rearranged the schedule so that you don't have a
reading due this weekend. We'll finish the procedures lab and
the conditionals lab on Monday (along with discussing any pitfalls
you've encountered).
- Grinnell Entrepreneurs is hosting a conference on Entrepreneurship
on Saturday, Feb. 17. Although the literature doesn't say so anywhere,
it's free for Grinnell students. More info is available at
http://www.grinnell.edu/groups/ge.
Wednesday, January 31, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Anne's office hours will be Mondays and Thursdays from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m.
- I have a dentist appointment this afternoon and will unavailable. I'll
check my email this evening.
- Are there any final questions on
homework 1?
Monday, January 29, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Are there any questions on the
reading on lists?
- Quiz (paper).
- Are there any questions on
homework 1?
- I hope to send out information on combining logical and physical
formatting this evening. (It depends a lot on how the weather
goes.)
Friday, January 26, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- Are there questions on homework 1?
- I'm working on some documentation for doing logical-style formatting
in HTML. I hope to have it ready on Monday.
- I'll take questions on today's reading after the introductory stuff.
Thursday, January 25, 2001:
Assignments
Notes
- If you don't feel that you can understand
the DrScheme lab without
a computer in front of you, that's okay, you'll work with it
on Friday.
- A few of you have asked for printed copies of course materials. If
you let me know that you want them, I'll try to have them available
before class.
- Are there questions on the
reading on HTML?
- If you had some problems with
the MathLAN lab or
the Blackboard lab, feel
free to work on that lab and ask me questions.
- William's sick again, so I'll be heading home directly after class.
Send me email if you have questions.
- I've read more of your introductory surveys and have started to
write responses (although they're not yet online).
I've also noted some issues.
- Many of you seem scared of the course, particularly because you have
"too little" computer experience. Don't worry!
I don't expect you to have done much on the computer. The course
was designed (at least at first) for people who'd never used a mouse
when they started.
- A few of you said that your best study time is "During the last-minute
panic a few hours before class." Whiel that's my best time to work, too,
my experience (that is, my experience looking at student work)
suggests that you won't get your work done if you rely on
last-minute work.
- A few of you said that you are "freshman" and "sophomores". What
school do you attend?
- A few of you need to work on your grammar. For example,
``couple'' is not an adjective and plurals typically do not
have apostrophes.
Wednesday, January 24, 2001:
Due
Assignments
Notes
- As many of you have discovered. this course web is still under
development. Send me email when you notice missing links or
other problems.
- My eldest son (William, 5) is sick. I won't be available this
afternoon (except by email) or much of tomorrow. You should
feel free to send me email and I'll respond as soon as possible.
Monday, January 22, 2001:
Assignments
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