CSC111 Class Page 2011

Main Page | Syllabus | Weekly Schedule | Links & Resources

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Prof and TAs

Dominique Thiébaut email Dept. Computer Science Ford Hall, 356. Telephone: 3854 Office hours Monday, 2-4 p.m., Tuesday 1-3 p.m., and by appointments

To see when and where TAs are available this week, click here.

Weekly Schedule

Week	Topics	Reading
Week 1 9/8	Thursday A look at the syllabus Introduction to computer programming Example of a Python program Playing with Python (an introduction to Lab #1 ) Python keywords Lab #1 and Solution to the Challenges...	Read Chapter 1 in Zelle. Whenever there are examples in Python, try them out at your computer. Test yourself with the Programming Exercises at the end of the chapter. Read the article on pair programming. We will discuss it in class on Th 9/15.
Week 2 9/13	Tuesday 5 minutes with Guido von Rossum {{#widget:Google Video	docid=-7758421725489622662	width=400	height=326 }} A word about semantics: a look back at the challenge solutions for Lab #1 A variable is just a way to name a memory location... Rules for naming variables Temperature conversion program. Thursday Quiz (2 questions) on article on pair programming. Overview of Homework #1 New tools! Beowulf and Emmy: Linux servers Secure Shell Access (ssh) Emacs: an editor for programmers Syntax and Semantic Exploring functions A function for greeting the user The main function Assignment statement: e.g. a = 3, or a, b = 10, 20 what really goes on inside the computer multiple assignments on one line Discussion of article on pair programming. Friday Computer Science lunch. "What we did last summer: CS Majors share their experience of the past summer. Informal gathering with free food, Ford Hall 345, 12:00-1:00 p.m. Lab 2, and solutions to the challenges, HW 1 and Solution programs for HW 1	Reading We're starting on Tuesday with material from Chapter 2. In particular understanding variables and assignments, and the temperature conversion program.
Week 3 9/20	Tuesday Getting to know python.org Python 3 Documentation Built-In Functions Processor and Memory: understanding bits, characters, and numbers. Review of the print statement. Exercises Exercises on Blocks and Loops. The concept of scope. Thursday Continuation of Exercises on print statements. Exercises on Blocks and Loops. The concept of scope. Multiple assignment Lab #3 and solutions to the challenges, Hw #2 and Solution programs	Reading On Tuesday we'll cover some material from Sections 2.5 (assignment) and 2.6 (definite loops) in Zele.
Week 4 9/27	Tuesday Q&A About current homework Top-Down design Exercise: A detailed look at the approach taken to solve a complex assignment. Debugging techniques (print statements, comments) Some comments about the last homework assignment Solutions posted (BOTW) Header Documentation Wrap long lines Thursday How to cut Python lines: Rules An introduction to nested loops. Return to the complex assignment of Tuesday: a look at nested loops. Some exercises on nested loops and solutions The Bicentennial Man... (Advance video to 7-minute point and watch...) Lab #4 and solution programs, HW #3 and Solution Programs	Reading: Read Chapter 3 in Zelle on your own. Instead of covering the information of this chapter in a class, we'll visit this information throughout the semester as we progress with Python. Important concepts from Chapter 3: the math functions (abs, round), and the fact that mixing integers and floats always yields a float result. math operators: /, //, % (remainder)
Week 5 10/4	Tuesday Understanding Python modules and syntax for using them Graphics and Object Oriented Programming Get the graphics.py library from http://mcsp.wartburg.edu/zelle/python/ The concept of classes and objects Encapsulating data and actions in objects Cartesian system Graphics primitives: GraphWin, Text, Point, Rectangle, Circle, Line. Standard methods: draw(), setWidth(), setFill(), close() Where can I get documentation on all of the Classes and Methods? here! Playing with graphics objects: Demo program (A good place for printing graph paper.) Thursday Handout on classes and methods defined in graphics.py Continuation of exploration of graphics primitives Point, Circle, Line, Rectangle, Text Taxi Example Lab #5 and solution programs, Homework 4 and Solution Programs	Reading Chapter 4 on Graphics
Week 6 10/11	Tuesday: Fall Break Thursday Pixelating George Clooney... A quick word about the RGB color model. Check out this nice video on YouTube as well... The Image( Point, fileName ) objects The color_rgb( ) and getPixel( x, y ) functions Result: we go from to Pixelating Program Exercise with dot notations for objects. New string methods: See python.org for the complete list: center(), upper(), lower(), split() (see this week's lab for more!) Reviewing using indexes with lists: Exercises Lab 6 and Solution Programs	Reading
Week 7 10/18	Tuesday: Midterm Exam ( preparation page with various typical questions) in class closed books closed computers Thursday Exercises with IF statements Functions: Games Exercises with Functions Lab #7 and Solution Programs, Homework #5 and solution program and sample pictures	Reading If statements are covered in Chapter 7 Functions are covered in Chapter 6 A good reference on if statements

Week	Topics	Reading
Week 8 10/25	Tuesday Welcome to our visitor: Susan S. Elliott, Founder & Chair, SSE, Inc., and author, Across the Divide: Navigating the Digital Revolution as a Woman, Entrepreneur and CEO. Turing and the Turing Test The Loebner Prize And the winner for 2011 is: Rosette Introduction to Rosette, the chatbot/chatterbot. Python loops: Review the break statement, and meet a new statement: continue in as an operator returning true or false: if x in [ 1, 2, 4, 10, 20]: ... Exercises Eliza (demo with emacs: hold shift and hit the escape key. Then type xdoctor and hit return) Want to learn more about chatbots? Check out this page! Wednesday: Presentation of the CS Major, 12:00 p.m., FH241. Thursday building a chatbot similar to Eliza something to start with: get the demo program from Lab 8. introducing randomness in picking answers know how to stop the conversation Detect family members Detect short negative answers reflection reflect "I" into "you", as in "I am bored" becoming "You are bored?" reflect "I" into "you" and "you" into "I": tricky! How can we make Eliza remember past answers from the user? program we developed in class Lab 8 and solution programs, Homework 6, and Solution Programs	Reading
Week 9 11/1	Tuesday A better AI Example: Watson! A note about HW #5: Dealing with multiple objects: Lists and Loops. An example program Slicing strings and lists. Functions returning values. Exercises Thursday Functions returning values. Exercises captchas examples of %-formatting Lab 9, HW 7 and Original Program you had to recreate.	Reading Slicing of strings is covered in Chapter 5. Slicing of lists works exactly the same way, and is covered in Section 11.2. Functions returning values are covered in Section 6.5.1. Read section 6.6
Week 10 11/8	Tuesday A surprising behavior... Using text files exercises illustrating the concept. Reading and writing text files: Revisiting earlier programs (presidents + Eliza) Disks (The disk is opened around the 4-minute time marker, power up around 5 min 30 sec., and read errors show up around 7 min.) SSD vs. HDD (YouTube video -- go to 2 min 30 sec for dramatic vibration test) Thursday: Otelia Cromwell Day (no labs) Exceptions: try/except. Exercises The While loop: the indefinite loop The syntax and how it works Transforming for-loops in while loops (not very useful, but illustrates well how while loops work) Sentinel loops (looping through numbers, looping through strings) Computation until some quantity reaches some value Making user input robust (keep on asking for something until it is one of the expected values) Infinite loops (while True) Boolean variables Exercises Lab 10, Homework 8 and solution program	Reading Exceptions: Section 7.4 Passing objects: Chapter 6 on Functions Text file processing: Section 5.9 While loops: Chapter 8
Week 11 11/15	Tuesday A note about the current best 1000 movies homework: make sure program does not crash if input file does not exist Test, test, test! The movie 2001 came out in 1968... Continuation of While Loops. Breaking/Continuing from nested while loops Boolean variables Exercises Thursday Review of good practices for this class Read the sections in the textbook that cover the material we see in class Look at the solution programs! There's a reason why they are posted! Redo the exercises we do in class. Try to come up with the solution on your own. Remember Benjamin Franklin Exceptions: Difference between NameError and TypeError: http://docs.python.org/library/exceptions.html Top-Down Design: Putting N-Queens on an NxN chessboard. This is the first step of a more complex problem we'll revisit later and which deals with the N-Queens problem. 1 solution for an 8x8 chessboard: [3, 6, 2, 7, 1, 4, 0, 5] An introduction to Homework 9's two problems: Average presidency: a rehash of an almost-ready solution Elevator to the Stars: revisiting old solutions with a bit of ingenuity (algorithm) Lab 11, Homework 9	Reading Top-Down design rules are covered in Section 9.3 Common loop patterns are covered in Section 8.3
Week 12 11/22	Tuesday Thursday: Thanksgiving Break	Reading
Week 13 11/29	Tuesday Thursday	Reading
Week 14 12/6	Tuesday Thursday	Reading
Week 15 12/13	Tuesday Thursday	Reading

Links and Resources

Graphics Library

• Download the graphics library
• Documentation for Zelle's graphics library.

On Line Python books

• disocovermagazine.com blog. Check out the answers posted by many readers. They contain some interesting links that you may find useful!

Python keywords

The list of all the reserved words of the Python language

and del for is raise assert elif from lambda return break else global not try class except if or while continue exec import pass yield def finally in print

Linux

• Getting Started with Linux (from U. North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
• Intermediate Linux (from U. North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
• A good Emacs tutorial
• Emacs Quick Reference

Misc

• If you decide to work in pairs for the homework assignments, you need to follow the protocol for 'pair programming' as discussed in this article.

• Video talks on Python:
  • Guido van Rossum, and Python 3000

• All the programs of Zelle's Python textbook

• a video of digital horses: what we can do with lists of objects!

Software

• Installing and using the Secure Shell Client on a Windows PC.

• Using SSH on Windows, Linux, or on a Mac with OS X

Math

• Powers of 2

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