Course staff & office hours
| Instructors: | Robby Findler | robby@cs
| Gladly by appointment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jesse Tov | jesse@cs
| Tu/Th 3–4:30 PM, Mudd 3510 |
General information
The goal of Intensive Program Design is to make you a better programmer. We will ask you to forget everything you know about programming and then help build you up again, stronger than before. If you work hard, you will learn to apply a rational design process, to think more clearly about code, and to present your work effectively to others. You should expect to spend a significant amount of time programming outside of class. Topics include data design, structure-oriented programming, testing and coverage, data structures and their analysis, systems programming, and resource management.
Prerequisites
None.
Exams
We will have one in-class midterm exam on Tuesday, 5 November.
Materials
Online
- Course discussion will take place online on the Campuswire discussion board. Please post (non-personal) questions there, as the instructors read it and your fellow students can benefit from your questions.
- Student library and language references:
- Library:
2htdp/image - Library:
2htdp/universe - Language: Beginning Student
- Language: Beginning Student with List Abbreviations
- Language: Intermediate Student
- Language: Intermediate Student with
lambda
- Library:
Books
Required textbook:
Suggested books:
- Bjarne Stroustrup, Programming: Principles and Practice, Second Edition.
- Scott Meyers, Effective Modern C++.
Software
In the first half of the course, we will be programming in several teaching languages that are part of the DrRacket programming environment. You can find setup instructions on GitHub.
The second half of the course uses C++ 2014, a recent version of the C++ programming language. More details will be posted when the time comes.
Lectures
Lecture notes are on GitHub.
Here is a tentative schedule of topics:
Homework
Homework will usually be assigned weekly and due at several points throughout the week, as follows:
| Day | Time | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | 23:59 | pull requests due |
| Tuesday | 23:59 | submit revised code |
| Wednesday | mid-day TBD* | code walks |
| Thursday | 23:59 | resubmit PRs |
* Code walks are performed in person with your partner. They’ll be scheduled during class each Tuesday based on both partners’ availability.
| # | Topic | Out | Walk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fixed-Sized Data | Thu, Sep 26 | Wed, Oct 2 |
| 2 | Sequential Data | Tue, Oct 8 | Wed, Oct 9 |
| 3 | Trees | Tue, Oct 15 | Wed, Oct 16 |
| 4 | Your Own Data | Tue, Oct 22 | Wed, Oct 23 |
| 5 | Tr | Tue, Oct 29 | Wed, Nov 6 |
| 6 | Kruskal | Tue, Nov 5 | Wed, Nov 13 |
| 7 | Hexapawn | Tue, Nov 12 | Wed, Nov 20 |
| 8 | Huffman | Tue, Nov 19 | Wed, Dec 4 |
| 9 | Your Own Idea | TBD | Mon, Dec 9 |
Final Project
| Deliverable | Due date |
|---|---|
| Proposal | Mon, Nov 11 |
| Specification | Fri, Nov 15 |
| First code review | Fri, Nov 22 |
| Second code review | Fri, Nov 29 |
| Presentation | Mon, Dec 9 |
| Final code review | Wed, Dec 11 |
General homework policies are here.
Course policies
Collaboration and academic integrity
You may not collaborate with anyone on the exam. You may not use any electronic tools, including phones, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktop computers, etc. If in doubt, ask a member of the course staff.
Most homework assignments will be completed with an assigned partner. You must pair program with your assigned partner, as specified, on homework assignments. You may request help from any staff member on homework. (When you are working with a partner, we strongly recommend that you request help with your partner.) You may use the Campuswire discussion board to ask questions regarding assignments, so long as your questions (and answers) do not reveal information regarding solutions. You may not get any help from anyone else on a homework assignment; all material submitted must be your own. If in doubt, ask a member of the course staff.
Providing illicit help to another student is also cheating, and will be punished the same as receiving illicit help. It is your responsibility to safeguard your own work.
If you read any actual code online that solves the same or a similar problem to the one we are asking you to solve, you must include a link to that code (or a citation of the publication you found it in) together with your homework submission. Reading prose that describes the algorithm is fine; any and all code you read, however, must be documented. Failure to disclose the link (or citation) is considered cheating.
Students who cheat will be reported to the appropriate dean.
If you are unclear on any of these policies, please ask a member of the course staff.
Homework
In general, you should submit your homework according to the instructions on the web page for the individual assignments.
Late work
Late work is not accepted.
Grades
[This is still subject to change.] Your grade will be based on codewalks of your homework assignments (70%) and the midterm exam (30%). There will be no final exam.