Overview

• Admin.
• Clicker Questions.
• Lessons from day one.
• Common parts of an algorithm.
• About the course.
• Getting started with Linux.
• Some administrative details (if there's time).

Admin

• If you expect to have a long-standing interest in CS (even if you don't plan to be a CS major), you can be on the csstudents mailing list and you can participate in CS Table. Email me to get added to the mailing list.
  • CS Table meets in JRC 224A at Noon on Fridays. We pay for your meal if you're a student not on board.
  • This week, we're reading Alan Turing's Computing Machinery and Intelligence http://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf
• The CS SEPC is hosting a study break tonight at 8pm in the CS Commons. Feel free to attend.
• With over sixty surveys between my two classes, I didn't have time to respond to all of them yet. (If I'm lucky, I can respond to a survey in 10 minutes.) Give me a few days.
  • You can find some answers to questions in FAQ.
  • I'm also preparing a summary of lessons (currently only linked from today's outline)
  • There seems to be some confusion about the relationship between outline and eboard.
    • outlines are prospective, they indicate what I plan to talk about
    • eboards are effectively retrospective, they record what we actually did talk about
  • Very few people even bothered to look up PGP or IRC.
    • We will be using IRC starting next week, but I will give you a short in-class introduction first.
    • And since some folks are concerned about revalations about Microsoft or the NSA, you might want to learn about PGP.
• For today's lab (and only today's lab), I'll try to have one of you per computer. We will need to spread out to both labs, and even across the hallway.
• You have four (!) short readings for tomorrow: The Parts of an Algorithm, The DrRacket Programming Enviornment, Beginning Scheme, and How Scheme Evaluates Expresssions (take 1).
• I'll note that Dr. Davis and I seem to have taken very different approaches to today's class.
• Any upcoming events? (talks, performances, games, etc)
• Instead of taking attendance, I will hand out out account information for the CS department workstations.
  • My, that was a failure.
  • Mr. Stone is in class now, so if I don't have a card for you, you'll need to find him after class.

Clicker Questions

• A quick question on policies

Lessons from day one

• You need to understand
  • that the person following instructions may have limited knowledge
  • and what that limited knowledge is
  • traditional writing issue: know your audience
• Explain clearly
• Adapt!

Common parts of an algorithm

• We name things - Variables

  • "Your dominant hand"
  • The jar
  • The piece of bread

• We make choices - Conditionals

  • If you still have something in your right hand, place it gently on the top surface of the table
  • Which thing to start with
  • If there's a screw-top lid, do ...; if there's a pry-top lid, do

• We repeat actions

  • Unscrew lid

• We group actions and name them - Functions, Procedures, Subroutines

  • "To open a jar"

About the course

Not covered

Getting started with Linux

Split

Some administrative details (if there's time)