EECS Main > Academics > Course Info

EECS 230 - Programming for Engineers

COURSE TITLE: EECS 230 Programming for Engineers

CATALOG DESCRIPTION: Introduction to programming, basic data types, basic control structures; object-oriented programming, classes, constructors and destructors, derived class and inheritance, pointers; engineering applications. Not for Computer Engineering majors.

PREREQUISITES : Freshman programming requirement (GTK 205-1, 2).

REQUIRED TEXT: H. M. Deitel and P. J. Deitel, C++: How to Program , Prentice Hall, 5 th edition

RECOMMENDED TEXT: Carrano & Prichard, Data Abstraction and Problem Solving with C++: Walls and Mirrors , Addison Wesley, 4 th edition

COURSE COORDINATORS: Larry Henschen

COURSE GOALS: To teach object-oriented programming with applications to engineering. To teach the concept of classes, inheritance, and libraries and teach issues related to good programming, reuse, and problem solving in general.

TUTORIALS: There will be three hands-on tutorials held in the computer lab during the first four weeks of the quarter. They will cover the use of the programming environment and the debugger.

GRADES:

Programming and Written Homework Assignments - 30%

Midterm - 30%

Final - 40%

DETAILED COURSE TOPICS:

Week 1: Introduction to software engineering and the software life cycle; top-down vs. bottom-up design; basic data types, operations and expressions.

Week 2: C++ program structure, include files; simple I/O; basic control statements (conditional statements, loops and loop statements)

Week 3: More on stream I/O; arrays, pointers and pointer arithmetic, pointer-controlled loops, relation between arrays and pointers; strings and string processing.

Week 4: Functions, value/reference/address parameters, simple parameters vs. array parameters; scope; activation stack.

Week 5: Introduction to struct and class , data hiding via private , member functions and public interface, introduction to initializing constructors.

Week 6: Continuation of constructors, dynamic allocation of data members, deep vs. shallow construction, destructors and deep vs. shallow destruction; new and delete .

Week 7: Derived classes and inheritance.

Week 8: Virtual functions, pure virtual functions, container classes.

Week 9: Introduction to simple data structures - linked lists and trees and the importance of pointers.

Week 10: Recursion; introduction to testing.

COMPUTER USAGE: Students learn to use a programming environment (e. g., C++ development environment) using a PC or a workstation. They learn how to use a compiler and debugger.

LABORATORY PROJECTS: The lab work consists of developing and debugging programs in C++ for:

•  basic statements and I/O

•  classes and inheritance

•  multi-function projects

•  medium-scale projects

The problems for the programming assignments are drawn from computer engineering and related areas like communications networks.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: When a student completes this course, s/he should be able to:

•  Formulate a solution, in a systematic way, to an open ended problem in engineering and science

•  Design efficient algorithms for solving a problem.

•  Translate the solution into a program (e.g., C++), making use of concepts in object-oriented programming to facilitate the translation process.

•  Effectively test and evaluate the program and interpret the final result. Effectively modify the final result if necessary.

ABET CONTENT CATEGORY: 100% Engineering (Design component).

Northwestern University Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering
and Applied Science Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department