| Instructor: | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Office: | |||
| Email: | † | ||
| Phone: | No need to call me | ||
| Course Webpage: | |||
| Office Hours: | |||
You can ask me questions during class, right before or after class, or during my office hours. Use the discussion board for questions on material, or general administrata.
An appropriate use of email would be to ask for a meeting, or, e.g., to let me know you'll miss class because you find yourself in the hospital.See http://www.cs.drexel.edu/clc — the Cyber Learning Center website. Click on your course to see your TAs, and those who are willing to help.
The texts might be found online at the Drexel Library. See the "Textbooks" section on the course Blackboard page.
NOTE: If you choose to steal textbooks, download unsanctioned electronic copies, do not advertise this fact to your instructor. That will likely end the conversation.
An introduction to the C language, and the command line in a Linux environment. Practice with some common developer tools, including RegEx and scripting.
To provide students with the skills needed to effectively design, develop, implement, debug, test, and maintain programs and more generally to solve problems using a computer. The course will teach these skills through the use of different programming languages, tools, and environments, though the general principles are independent of any particular language, tool, or environment. General themes include clarity, simplicity, generality, and automation.
This course will acomplish several things. You will:
Not only do I use the terminal tools we learned constantly all day, everyday, but the scripting tools have saved me a bunch of time and headaches at work. CS265 had provided me a sturdy tool belt that has been very useful for my experience in industry so far.
— Ethan Alfonso
This is a required sophomore level course for Computer Science students. The student has had 6 credits of some programming language, at a CS1 level, such as Python. So, the student knows assignment, branches, and looping.
It is expected that you have had at least 6 credits of a higher-level imperative programming language, and have had some experience with an OO language.
Your account on the department servers should have been created. If it is not, try https://support.cci.drexel.edu/act/tux/reset/. If that doesn't bring you joy, please contact ihelp@drexel.edu .
I will mail grades for assignments to your Drexel account (e.g., abc12@drexel.edu), so you should have that enabled and check that, or have it forwarded somewhere.
Please note that while high school algebra isn't listed as a prerequisite, it is a prerequisite for the BS program in CS.
| Weekly Labs | 50% |
| In-class Activities | 20% |
| Final Exam | 30% |
Lab and assignment evaluations will have a maximum of 20% reduction for each day they are late. Labs and assignments will have a 2-day hard deadline.
Last date to withdraw with a "W" grade:
Extra Credit
None
We'll try to put aside at least 40 min. each week for group work. You will work in groups of 2 or 3. Nobody works alone.
The activity will be due that evening.
You must be in class the entire time to get credit for activities.
There are weekly labs. It is recommended that you can the lab before the last meeting each week so that you can ask questions in class. Or, use the discussion board on Blackboard.
Lab work must be done on your own, except as specified.
There will be a final, in the spirit of a quizz. Just an hour. The questions will be broad, but not very deep. We're looking to see that you showed up each week w/your pads on, ready to play. Revieing the notes and your labs should be amply sufficient as a strategy.
You must know your section number and your Drexel username (not your studentID). Use flashcards, if you have trouble. You may not ask your neighbor, nor look at your phone during an exam.
Exams are closed-book. No notes, phones, computers, etc.
Do not pull stuff off the Web. Odds are decent you'll get a 0, or be given an F for the course.
You are expected to abide by the deadlines. If you missed submitting by 2 minutes, then it's late. If submission closed 2 minutes before you tried to submit, you were late by 2 days and 2 minutes. We will not accept it.
Assignments must be all original work.
Under no circumstance will you email your work, w/out prior consent.
Because there are differences, even amongst flavors of Unix, all projects will be graded on the department Linux workstations (accessed through tux.cs.drexel.edu). Do all of your work on tux. Test on tux, before submitting.
Do all of your work on the department machines. Ask CCI-IT (at ihelp@drexel.edu) why there aren't any lab machines that boot to Linux any more.
On my front page are some links for basic Unix commands, and a quick reference for using the vi editor. Please also visit the Resources frame on this site.
If you have, or have had, a CS course you should have an account on the CS servers. If not, email ihelp@drexel.edu .
You can access your files and have shell access to tux from anywhere on the Internet. You simply need an SSH client. Mac, simple, open a terminal, ssh (and scp and rsync) is installed. Windows, I don't know. I'd recommend downloading and using PuTTY.
The department has a Web server where you can post content that we may play with at some point.
Another fine alternative is to install an environment such as cygwin on your Microsoft machine. This gives you the g++ compiler, GDB (the gnu debugger), and a make utility, along with the bash shell, and other common utilities, such as vim (an improved vi editor), cvs, a source versioning system, and some other neat things.
Apple OS 10 already have a BSD (Unix) subsystem in place. You'll want to install gnutools, coreutils, something like that. You get many of them when you install XCode. That'll certainly get you gcc, the C compiler.
All the flavors of Linux are fine, too. Just test on tux.
If you're gonna be programmers, you're going to have to get used to working on different platforms. Of course we have personal preferences, but that doesn't stop us from working where we need to. If you have your files on the CS servers (or on dunx1) you'll be able to access them from anywhere on the Internet, even if you don't have your personal machine w/you. An Internet connection and secure-shell (SSH, free from Drexel's download site, or PuTTY, a free small stand-alone) program are all you need.
Use the discussion board on Blackboard to ask questions about the course, or material studied in this course. Do not email instructors and TAs questions that all students might benefit from.
Only email instructors or TAs about individual administrative matters.
Some guidelines for posting to the discussion board:
Attendance is part of your grade. Bring your ID with you. Get permission from your instructor before attending a different section.
In class, I don't want to see any phones. And you are not to be on the computer unless it is lab time. If you would take notes to learn, then you should hand-write them. See this article, Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away, on NPR.
You are expected to attend class. Missing classes may negatively impact your performance, and financial aid.
By the laws of most states, you've reached the age of consent. If you don't want to come to class, I won't cramp your style. But you are responsible for getting notes from someone other than myself.
You are expected to be in class. I might be moved to take attendance.
Quizzes and labs are mandatory. See Exams for a discussion of excused absences.
In general, you are responsible for anything I say, write on the board, and all assigned reading, unless I specify otherwise.
I will announce all homeworks and quizzes ahead of time; generally assignments, homeworks and times are posted on Bb Vista, and on your class page.
A simple observation: while there have been exceptions, generally (more than 95% of the time) students who don't come to class regularly don't do as well on exams, and often receive poor grades, often lower than that student, in my estimation at least, could've done.