CSCI 101-001: Intro To Computer Science, Summer 2017 Course Information and Syllabus

05/23/2017 - 08/10/2017 (Summer Session One through Summer Session Two)

Prof. Douglas Moody

Adjunct Assistant Professor,
Computer Science Department,
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences,
New York University

Email address

dlm9@nyu.edu

Mailing address
251 Mercer Street,
Room 305
New York City, 10012

Office hours
Room 328 WWH
Tuesdays / Thursdays 4:30 - 5:30 pm.
before class, and by appt.

Course Essentials

Class meetings: Tuesday and Thursday from 2:10 PM - 4:15PM in WWH, Rm 517 Loc: WWH (attendance is mandatory).

Office hours: Tuesdays / Thursdays 4:30 - 5:30 pm in Room 328 WWH

Information and Assignments will be provided via the NYU Courses capabilities

Tutors: Tutors for the course are available in WWH 412. Times to be determined.

How to get help? Talk to me! Email me! Use the tutoring services!
Make sure you let me know as soon as you feel lost in the course. Do not wait till you start getting failing grades because it might be too late by then.

Catalog Description

Introduction to Computer Science
CSCI-UA 101 Prerequisite: Introduction to Computer Programming (CSCI-UA 2) or departmental permission assessed by placement exam.

Students learn how to design algorithms to solve problems and how to translate these algorithms into working computer programs. Experience is acquired through programming projects in a high-level programming language. Intended primarily as a first course for computer science majors but also suitable for students of other scientific disciplines. Programming assignments.

Important Dates

TBD : Midterm Exam 1

TBD : Midterm Exam 2

Thursday 8-10-2017 : Final Exam (Tentative… based on College Exam schedule)

What will you learn?

In this course we will start with a quick review of elementary programming and make sure that everyone is familiar with Java syntax. Then we will move to more advanced object oriented concepts and you will learn how to write your own classes and use many of the classes that are provided by Java. Emphasis will be placed on solving problems and then applying Java based instructions.

Department Links

Computer Science Department

Statement of Academic Integrity

CS Minor course description/requirements

Textbook

Introduction to Java Programming, Brief Version, 10/E
Note: You do not need the comprehensive edition
By Y. Daniel Liang
ISBN-10: 0133592200, ISBN-13: 9780133592207
2013 Prentice Hall
Publisher's website
Companion website
author's website

Prerequisites

Students without programming experience should take the more introductory course -- CSCI.UA.0002.

Students with a lot of programming experience may take a test out exam to move directly to CSCI.UA.0102 (Data Structures).

In this course you will be using Java, an object oriented language. You do not need to have any experience specifically with Java, but you need to be familiar with the basic concepts of some programming language:

variables: types integer and real (int and float or double in Java),
arithmetic and Boolean operators and expressions,
the assignment statement,
the if--else statement, including nested if--else statements,
the for loop, including nested for loops,
basic input and output.

Grading

Your grade will be based on

exams (80%): 2 midterms (20% each) and the final (40%),
assignments (20%)

9 programming assignments up to 10 points (lowest dropped)
2 assignment scores based on attendance

Assignments

There will be weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) programming assignments. In general the assignments will be due the next week after they are assigned. All assignments will be graded out of 10. Assignments are due as posted before 11pm. Assignments submitted after due date but within 5 days will be graded up to a maximum of 8 points. Assignments submitted after the due date plus 5 days will not be accepted. Some assignments will be reviewed in class after the late submission date.

Challenging assignment grade:
You can challenge grade on any assignment. To do so, you need to come to see me before class, during the office hours, or schedule an appointment. Grade challenges are not done via email or immediately after class.

Exams

There will be two midterms and a final exam. All exams are cumulative, although they will have larger emphasis on the new material covered since the previous exam.

Missing an exam: There will be no make-up exams. Failure to take an exam counts as a zero grade on that exam. The only exception to this rule is for students who have a legitimate medical or personal emergency (documented). These students need to talk to me as soon as possible (trying to excuse an exam absence three weeks after it happened will not work).

Academic Integrity Policy

I follow the department's academic integrity rules. In short, it is fine to talk to other students about your ideas and your programs, but it is not fine to work together on assignments or copy someone else's assignment. You cannot copy other people's work without giving them a proper credit (and part of your grade).
You may discuss any of the assignments with your classmates (or anyone else) but all work for all assignments must be entirely your own unless a group project is specifically assigned. Any sharing or copying of assignments will be considered cheating. By the rules of the College of Arts and Science, I am required to report any incidents of cheating to the department.
If you have any doubt if something that you are doing qualifies as academic dishonesty, talk to me!

Doing Well in This Course

In order to do well in this course you need to:

Attend lectures and sign the attendance sheet
do ALL of the assigned homework and assignments (regardless if they are going to be graded or not);
do the Check Point exercises in the chapters that we cover the answers to all of them are posted on the author's website; use these to test your understanding of the material; make sure that you attempt to do the exercises, not just look at the solutions!
write code for some of the Programming Exercises at the end of each chapter; the solutions to the even numbered exercises are posted on the author's website; the more you program, the better you get at it; the only way to learn programming is to spend many hours writing programs (and not only the programming assignments, but practice programs)!
study the new material from one class to the next, not just before the exams;
read the chapters that we cover and come to the lectures with questions about the material;
attend the classes;
ask questions in class, after class, during my office hour and by email; I don't know that something is unclear unless someone asks.

Talk to me whenever you start falling behind or have questions that you do not want to ask in class. Remember, professors have office hours for a reason to interact with students on course issues, material questions, or general information about the industry. My office hour is dedicated to this class, please take advantage of this time.

Topics Covered

This is a tentative list of the topics we will cover:

Java Documentation and Resources

Deena Engel's list of differences between Python and Java

Java Language Specification

Java API

Compilers

Eclipse Download

Eclipse Help - go to Java development user guide for tutorials/instruction on creating your first project, running, debugging, and details of many tools available in Eclipse.

VideoNote on creating your first Eclipse project, writing the code, compiling and running from within the IDE.

Academic Email Etiquette

Check the school email address on a regular basis. You can simply forward its content to another email account that you use regularly.
Use your school's email account to send emails to professors, instructors, TA's, graders, administrators, etc. OR make sure that your email address contains your true name, not "frabjous@gmail.com", "BabyGurl@yahoo.com" or some other cool alias.
Start your email with proper salutations! Use the correct titles (Professor, Dr., etc.) and spell first and last names correctly. If you are on the first name basis with your instructors, use their names, not "Hey". For example: "Dear Professor Drummer" or "Dear Robert", not "Hey Bob".
Sign your name under the body of your email, otherwise you expect people to read emails from anonymous.
Do not write everything in upper-case letters. Do not write everything in lower-case letters.
Make sure you included everything you wanted before hitting send. Don't send three emails one after another because you forgot something in the first one.
Proofread the text in your email before sending it. Most of the email clients check for typos, but they cannot tell if your email makes much sense. Read it, before you send it.