Front Door

Welcome to the Spring 1999 session of Grinnell College's CSC 152, Fundamentals of Computer Science II, which is described relatively well in the official blurb. My own take on this course is that we'll be expanding your knowledge of Computer Science and of computer programming, while emphasizing the development and analysis of common data structures and algorithms. We will be using Java as our development language.

In an attempt to provide up-to-date information, and to spare a few trees, I am making this as much of a ``paperless'' course as I can. You may also want to read the basic instructions for using this course web.

Note that there are two sections of CSC152. You may also want to look at the course web for the other section as well as the overheads from that section.

Meets: MTuWF 11:00 in Science 2417.

Instructor: Samuel A. Rebelsky, Science 2427. Office hours MWF 3:05-4:05

Grading: Project: 20%; Homework: 40% (3 graded assignments out of 6-10 total assignments); Exams: 30% (3 graded take-home exams);. Best-of-three: 10% (the best of the preceding three grades).

The final examination for this course is optional. It can be used as a makeup for one examination. Like the other examinations, it will be a take-home examination.

Labs: While you won't do as many labs as you did in CS151 (if you took CS151), I am moving CS152 to more of a lab-based course. Labs are for your benefit, not mine, so I won't be grading them (other than to check that you completed them).

Extra Credit: I will occasionally give you quizzes to ensure that you're keeping up with the reading. Correct answers on the quizzes will give you some amount of extra credit.

Since you'll be working with preprints of books, it is likely that you will find some errors. Minor errors (e.g., typos) are worth 1/10 of a point of extra credit. Major errors are worth 1/2 of a point (and an acknowledgement in the final version). Only the first person to identify an error gets the extra credit. Each person can get no more than five points of extra credit of this form.

Throughout the term, I may suggest other forms of extra credit.

Books and Other Readings:

Rebelsky, Samuel (1999). Experiments in Java. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman. Forthcoming. This is the laboratory manual that we will use for the first few weeks of class. It is currently in draft form and I will be distributing copies. It is also available online.

Dale, Nell; Rebelsky, Samuel; and Weems, Chip (1999). Java Plus Data Structures. This is also in draft form. I will distribute a chapter each week (more or less). You can find additional materials online.

Rebelsky, Samuel (1999). The CS152 99S Course Web. The hypertext that you are currently reading. All of these materials are optional, but you may find them useful.