Overview

• Preliminaries. [10:00-10:05]
  • Admin.
  • Upcoming Work.
  • Extra Credit.
  • Questions.
• The subject matter(s) of the course.
  • Review broad topics [10:05-10:10]
  • Contribute [10:10-10:30]
  • Sam comments [10:30-10:35]
• Course evaluation. [10:35-10:45]
• Final comments. [10:45-10:50]

Preliminaries

Admin

• Thanks to our mentors!
• Final PSA for this class.
• I need a volunteer to take EOCEs to Science Division Office.
• Continued MathLAN problems mean that most, but not all, grades are entered. For those receiving grades after class, your ultimate grade will not be lower.

Upcoming Work

• Course evaluation (last part of class)
• Optional final (Tuesday at 9 or Friday at 9; Food!)

Extra Credit Opportunities

Academic

Peer Support

• Evan's radio show 5pm Friday nights on KDIC
• Donna's radio show Sunday midnight on KDIC (maybe)
• Jazz Band, Dec. 13, 8pm Gardner
• Monday night "With Toy Trains" study break with Noteworthy

Additional Events

• Looking ahead: We do not have classes on MLK day, but we do have campus events. You should consider participating in those events.

Questions

The subject matter(s) of the course

We're talking about these issues because five of the six questions ask you to think about "the subject matter of the course". I think it's worthwhile to talk to you a bit about how you might describe such a thing.

Review broad topics [10:05-10:10]

Scheme

Scheme is a language for expressing programs/algorithms.

• Local bindings and let
• Ways to sequence values
  • Compose, o
  • Nesting
  • let*
  • Continuations
  • when
  • A sequence of expressions in the body of a procedure or let statement.
• How to do recursion in Scheme
  • letrec
  • named let
  • ...
• Types
  • Boolean values are cool (George Boole rocks!)
• Conditionals
  • if, cond, when
• Higher-order procedures
  • You can take procedures as parameters or return procedures
  • "The one on the quiz"
  • map
  • Constructing other procedures
• We learned like 2000 different procedures. yay vocab!
• You can learn a whole lot of CS with just one language.

Software Design

When we think about software design, we think about how to write better programs.

• Identify preconditions and postconditions.
• Check preconditions.
• Test your programs using a testing framework, like Rackunit.
• Be concise.
• Objects.
• We are sometimes more efficient coders if we write helper functions to do some of the work. Helpers also make our code more readable.
• Creativity - There's more than one way to make a sandwich.
• Efficiency - Bad design means that programs run a long time. The folks who built our Web advisor software need to learn that.
• Ordering is important.
• Be careful.
• Scope: Limit how data can be accessed
• Higher-order-programming

Computer Science

CS is the study of algorithms and data structures.

• The components of an algorithm
  • Variables and Parameters (two kinds of named things)
  • Subroutines (another kind of named things)
  • Repetition
  • (Input and output)
  • Conditionals
  • Sequencing
  • one more that you should think about
• Recursion - We can define a procedure in terms of itself.
• Objects.
• Ethics of building software and computing: Roles of free software.
• Relationships between iteration and recursion as ways to repeat.
• The power of randomness.
• "Great ideas in CS"
  • Data structures: Linked lists
  • Algorithms: Sorting algorithms (insertion, selection, merge)
  • Searching algorithms (binary, sequential)
• Not all problems can be solved algorithmically

Image Making

We tried to help you think differently on what goes on "under the surface" of an image.

• Model: image-compute!
• Turtles are a really slow model. (So is image-compute!)
• GIMP!
  • By hand
  • Programatically
  • It's possible to design really cool software that's really not intuitive.
• There are many ways to achieve the same result; think about which one is likely to work best.

General Skills / Ideas

• Group work - How to interact with other people when working on projects.
• Thinking on your feet.
• Careful reading/editing.
• Benefits of reflecting in advance and retrospectively.
• Time management (aka "how to deal with way too much work and an expectation that you can fit meetings with other people into a Grinnellian's schedule)
• Know about laws, such as academic honesty standards.

And Beyond

• It's important to make friends and you can do so while working together.
• Effort and time do not necessarily correlate with success.
• "Save Early and Often"
• "There's more to life than CS" (or any academic discipline)
• "Computers are Sentient and Malicious"
• "Be full of care."
• It's always okay to ask for help. (And know that you're not alone.) Your turn [10:10-10:30]
• "Sleeping, that's important!"
• You have amazingly awesome people around you. Learn what they do and support them in it!
• The College has really cool academic talks and other things. Take advantage of them!
• Eat, bubala, eat!

• Please think carefully about how you relax.

• Three minutes with your partner: Five things to add.

• We'll get as many down as we can.

My turn [10:30-10:35]

• Course evaluation. [10:35-10:45]
• Final comments. [10:45-10:55]

Course evaluation [10:35-10:45]

Final comments [10:45-10:50]