CSC 160
Computer Programming for Non-Majors

Fall, 2011

Syllabus	Calendar	Textbook (including pictures and worked exercises)	Homework	PSP	Moodle	Piazza	Supplementary Textbook	Daily Survey	Design recipes

Course meeting

This course meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:15-1:30 PM in Science 227. (There's another section of it on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:15-5:30, taught by a former student of mine.) The last time I taught this course was spring 2011.

Getting Help

My office hours (in Post 203; if I'm not there, look in the computer lab in Post 102) are MTWTh 3:00-4:00 and W 9:30-1:00.

Student tutor Nick Miceli can help with this course. Nick is available for help in Post 102 on Thursdays from 2:00-3:00 PM (immediately after our class) and on Fridays from 1:15-1:45 PM.

When you have questions about the class, I encourage you to post them on Piazza (anonymously if you wish), and perhaps one of your classmates will answer the question before Nick or I even see it. If we see an answer that's clearly wrong, we'll correct it; if we see an answer that we like, we'll mark it as such.

Textbooks

The main textbook for this class is Picturing Programs: an Introduction to Computer Programming. It's available in the bookstore, fairly inexpensively, but it's also available on-line for free

In past semesters, I've used How to Design Programs, by Felleisen, Fisler, Flatt, and Krishnamurthi, published by MIT Press. The second edition of the book isn't finished, but enough of it is posted on the Web to keep you busy this semester.

We'll be programming in a version of the Scheme programming language. Why Scheme rather than C++ or Java?

Partners for upcoming assignments

Recipes and Syntax Rules

Software support

We use the software package DrRacket, which is available for free download for Windows, Mac, and Unix. You are encouraged to install it on your home computer. It's also installed in all the computer labs on campus. If you download the latest version, you may get one slightly more up-to-date than what's in the on-campus labs, but I don't expect that'll cause any problems.

If you're using a recent version of DrRacket, you don't need the installation procedure described in Chapter 1 of the textbook, and you can just say

(require picturing-programs)

(require installed-teachpacks/picturing-programs)

Reading List

• John Clements's Videos on Using DrRacket
• Read (and use!) the Design Recipe(s).
• Skim my Adages on Software Engineering and Object-Oriented Programming; in particular, read the few paragraphs about "the joys (and woes) of the craft".
• On Pair Programming: read All I Really Need to Know about Pair Programming I Learned in Kindergarten , and
  the Extreme Programming page on Pair Programming
• More generally, skim through the various sections of Extreme Programming
• My page on the minimal Scheme language treats Scheme as a foreign language, with its own spelling, punctuation, grammar, vocabulary, and idioms.
• You might also be interested in Jack Crouch's CS1 Web site. Jack Crouch teaches a course on beginning programming, using Racket, DrRacket, and his own materials based on How to Design Programs; the difference is that he's teaching high school freshmen rather than college freshmen.
• Why Scheme rather than C++ or Java? A collection of success stories and articles about Scheme in education and industry.

Who should take this course?

This course is intended primarily for people who have not previously studied computer programming, primarily non-majors. CS and CMIS majors are allowed to take the course, and will almost certainly learn something, but this course isn't part of the CS or CMIS major. For math majors, this course no longer counts as your programming requirement (although you'll learn a lot from it anyway). For non-majors, this course counts towards your math/science distribution requirement.