CS 1063 Syllabus

Class Web Page:  http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~cs1063

Lecture Time and Place:

Class	Section	Day	Time	Place	Instructor
CS 1063	1	MW	5:30-6:45pm	SB 3.02.07	Tom Bylander
CS 1063	2	MWF	9:00-9:50am	SB 3.02.02	Anthony Chronopoulos
CS 1063	3	TR	3:30-4:45pm	SB 3.02.02	Dakai Zhu
CS 1063	4	TR	11:00-12:15am	SB 3.02.02	Dave Womack

Textbook:

Building Java Programs: A Back to Basics Approach, 2nd edition by Stuart Reges and Marty Stepp

Prerequisite:

No previous programming experience.  Students with programming experience should consider CS 1713 or CS 2123.

Course Objectives:

• Student will learn programming terminology and will obtain a solid grasp of the basic mechanics of programming.  This includes:
  • Introduction to problem solving for programming (i.e., "how to think about solving the problem" including techniques such as pseudo-code or flowcharts)
  • Syntax and program structure, including Java identifier rules
  • Primitive data types and declarations
  • Operations on ints (including mod), doubles (including truncation), and booleans
  • String objects and basic String methods
  • Basic input with Scanner, including validating input
  • Basic output using System.out.println
  • Conditional execution with if, else if, and else
  • Basic looping, including for and while loops
  • Static methods and method invocation
  • One-dimensional arrays of primitive types and Strings including the following topics: declaration, initialization, assignment, traversal, and methods
  • Basics of identifying and fixing errors
• Students will learn to understand code.  Students should be able to trace the execution of code fragments, particularly simple cases such as keeping track of the values of variables through a short series of computations, including branches, loops, and method calls.
• Students will learn basic programming.  Students should be able to write simple programs.  Examples include: computing the area or volume of a shape given the formula, translating between units (e.g., miles to kilometers), counting the iterations of a while loop, taking unstructured input inside a loop and producing tabular output, or summing the values in an array.  Students should be able to write reasonably correct Java code on paper, so that their programming skill can be evaluated by exams.

Grading Policy:

• 30% Two in-class exams
• 30% Final exam: Saturday, May 5, 2012 from 7:30am to 10:00am
• 10% Online quizzes (around 12)
• 15% Laboratories (around 10)
• 15% Individual programming projects (3 projects)

Tentative Schedule:

Week	Reading	Topics
1	Chapter 1	orientation, print and println
2	Chapter 1	errors, simple methods
3	Chapter 2	primitive data, variables, operators, and assignment
4	Chapter 2	for loops, pseudocode, scope
5	Chapters 1-2	Exam 1
6	Chapter 3	parameters, Math functions, using String methods
7	Chapter 3	using Scanner and Graphics objects
8	Chapter 4	if, else, else if, conditions, relational operators
9	Chapter 4	cumulative algorithms, text processing, combining if and return statements
10	Chapters 1-4	Exam 2
11	Chapter 5	while, logical operators, boolean type
12	Chapter 5	fencepost loops, Scanner loops
13	Chapter 7	array basics: declaration, initialization, access, assignment, Arrays class
14	Chapter 7	array traversal, coding methods for arrays
15	Chapters 1-5, 7	Final Review

Blackboard:

The course will be using Blackboard (http://bb.utsa.edu/) for project and laboratory hand-ins, grade reporting, and online quizzes.  Blackboard also provides a course discussion page, course mail (not email) for exchanging course information, and a course chat page.  The course calendar is also maintained there.

Online Quizzes:

There will be approximately 12 quizzes administered online through Blackboard.  Two grades will be dropped in computing your quiz grade (one from the first half and another from the second half).  You are responsible for taking the quiz on one of the days that it is available online.

Laboratories:

You will receive grades for approximately 10 laboratories (7 for summer).  You are encouraged to collaborate on the laboratory exercises, but direct copying is not allowed.  You must upload the deliverables for the laboratory in Blackboard by the due date to receive credit for the exercise.  Late laboratories and projects will NOT be accepted unless you have made prior arrangements with your lecture instructor.

Individual Programming Projects:

There will be three major programming projects this semester.  While you may ask for assistance in debugging, these projects are to be ENTIRELY your own work.

Drop Date: Monday, April 30, 2012

Computer Accounts:

You will have an account on the CS network as long as you are enrolled in CS courses at UTSA.  This account gives you access to Windows, Linux and Sun machines in various CS laboratories.  You may also access your account from off-campus via the Internet using SSH Secure Shell.  A free version of SSH Secure Shell is available from your CS 1063 Blackboard page (http://bb.utsa.edu/) if you wish to install it on your home machine.

Your account name will usually be your first initial followed by up to 7 letters of your last name.  However, account names sometimes vary because of name conflicts.  You can find out your account name from your instructor.  Your initial password is your 8-digit student ID without the leading @ sign.

Scholastic Dishonesty:

The integrity of a university degree depends on the integrity of the work done for that degree by each student.  The University expects a student to maintain a high standard of individual honor in his/her scholastic work.

In this course, you are encouraged to collaborate on the laboratories, but direct copying is not allowed.  You may NOT collaborate on any of the individual programming projects.  In particular, copying other people's code with minor modifications on individual projects is regarded as a serious case of cheating.  You must write your own code.  Because patterns of cheating do not always become apparent until after several assignments have been completed, you should be aware all of your assignments are available to your instructor on Blackboard.

Further information on UTSA's policies regarding academic dishonesty can be found in UTSA's Student Code of Conduct, Section 203.