COMPUTING SCIENCE 120
Abstraction, Design, and Object-Oriented Programming

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND REGULATIONS

Winter Term, 2006

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Instructor: Dr. Jonathan Mohr
Office: N104	Phone: 679-1514
Office Hours: see instructor's home page	E-mail:

Calendar Description:

An introduction to programming, problem solving, and the design of large software systems using an object-oriented programming language (typically Java); objects, classes, methods, messages, parameters, inheritance, encapsulation, binding, polymorphism; algorithmic constructs; basic data structures; overview of software engineering.

Requirements:

Prerequisites — CSC 110.

Corequisites — MAT 110 or 111, and 120.

See also the Calendar descriptions of all Augustana Computing Science courses.
 

Objectives:

1. To understand the activity of computer programming.
2. To understand the compilation process.
3. To understand the difference in use and representation between integer and floating-point numbers, and the problems of loss of precision and roundoff errors.
4. To understand the use of programming language control constructs for decisions, iteration, recursion, and functional abstraction, including nested constructs and block scope.
5. To learn effective methods of program testing, debugging, and validation, including the use of test stubs, principles of test case selection, and the use of exceptions to enforce program preconditions.
6. To become familiar with object-oriented programming and design, including the use of library objects, the implementation of new classes and interfaces, the use of packages, and the concepts of encapsulation and access control.
7. To become familiar with basic data structures, including arrays, vectors, matrices, and lists.
8. To become familiar with simple algorithms sorting and searching, and to understand the use of Big-O notation to describe the performance of algorithms.
9. To learn how to read and write files, process command line parameters, and understand the concepts of sequential and random access.

Method of instruction:

The lecture component of this course will present an introduction to abstraction, design, and object-oriented programming using Java.

The lab portion of the course will supplement the lectures by providing the students with plenty of opportunity to write, test, debug, and refine numerous computer programs. Each lab will take from one to approximately three hours to complete. Students will be able to complete most lab assignments during the scheduled lab session each week, but will have to complete others on their own outside of the supervised lab session. For most of the lab assignments, students must attend the scheduled lab session in order to have the instructor verify that the lab was completed.

For the first five lab sessions, students will be encouraged to use pair programming, an approach in which students work in pairs on solving the assigned problems. Students will be paired with a different partner for each set of lab exercises.

The three programming assignments which will be the focus of the lab sessions in the latter part of the course are to be completed individually by each student.

A lab exam will be administered during the last scheduled lab session (April 6). Students will work individually to solve a programming problem that will be distributed at the start of the lab session, and must submit their solutions by the end of the lab session. Students may consult the textbook and other print and online resources (including their solutions to previous lab exercises and programming assignments), but may not communicate with each other.

Textbook:

Cay Horstmann, Java Concepts, 4th edition (Wiley, © 2006) ISBN 0-471-69704-4. [The first printing says "© 2005".]

An errata list for this textbook is available.

Previous editions of this textbook or its companion books — Computing Concepts with Java Essentials or Big Java — can also be used, but page references and exercise numbers may be different. If you are using a different edition or book, check with the instructor or a classmate to verify which exercises are to be completed. The primary differences between the older and the new editions are the use, beginning in Chapter 4, of the Scanner and PrintStream classes that were introduced in Java 5 and of generic classes, also new in Java 5, beginning with the generic ArrayList class in Chapter 8, and including a new Chapter 22 that covers generic programming in more depth. (We probably will not make it to Chapter 22 in this course.) In addition, the coverage of some topics was reordered, some expanded, and some omitted; for example, Chapter 2 of the previous edition was split into two chapters in the new edition. The author provides a conversion guide that compares the previous and current editions of these books.

Attendance and Course Work Policy:

In accordance with Augustana's policy on attendance and course work (Section B), any student who has an inordinate number of absences in a course or who neglects his/her academic work may be suspended from the course (which includes being refused permission to attend class sessions, submit assignments, and write examinations, including the final examination).

In this course, any student missing more than two class or lab sessions or failing to submit more than one assignment may be suspended from the course.

A suspended student will be notified of the suspension by e-mail and by paper mail addressed to the student's assigned campus mailbox. It is the student's responsibility to arrange a meeting with the instructor to discuss the terms under which the suspension may be lifted.

A more complete list of rules which will apply in this course and some suggestions for active learning are specified in Expectations Regarding Attendance and Course Work.

The intended workoad for this class is 14 to 16 hours per week, including the (approximately) 4 hours of scheduled class and lab sessions. This assumes an additional 2 hours of work and study for each lecture hour plus 4 to 6 hours per week for the lab assignments.

Grading Policy:

Grades will be awarded using the Alberta-wide standard alpha four-point grading system. For assignments marked in percent, the percent/grade equivalents in this course will be approximately as indicated in the following table:

Your performance will be evaluated through five sets of lab exercises, three programming assignments, a mid-term exam, a lab exam, and a final exam. Class and lab attendance and participation (including preparation) will be assessed as part of the assignment mark.

Each set of lab exercises must be demonstrated to the instructor or lab assistant during the lab session in which it was assigned or during the subsequent lab session.

The due dates for the programming assignments are indicated in the course outline. Assignments are due by midnight on the due date stated. Late assignments will be accepted subject to a penalty of 1% per hour or portion thereof, except for a valid medical excuse or other reasonable cause approved by the instructor prior to the due date.

The weighting of exams and assignments will be as follows:

Each set of lab exercises will consist of about four to six small programs, each of which should take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Each set of lab exercises will be weighted at 4% . For lab exercises completed by programming pairs, both members of each pair will receive the same mark on the set of lab exercises that they completed together.

The first two programming assignments will be weighted at 6% each, and the third at 8%.

Academic Integrity:

The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behaviour and avoid any behaviour which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.

Guidelines for Academic Integrity in This Course

All work submitted for grading must be your own, unless a group of students have arranged with the instructor in advance to complete a given assignment as a group project. Programs that appear to be the same, to have been derived from a common source, or to have been fraudulently obtained or created by any means will be given a failing grade.

Some of the practices which are regarded as inappropriate academic behaviour (academic dishonesty) are:

• submitting someone else's work as your own;
• writing or creating a work in the knowledge that it will be fraudulently submitted by someone else as his or her own (whether or not you receive payment);
• altering someone else's work (e.g., by changing the variable names) to conceal the fact that it was fraudulently obtained and submitted;
• using portions of another person's work (including algorithms or code from textbooks, magazines, or other sources) without acknowledgment.

Students are encouraged to assist one another in completing assignments, especially by explaining concepts to each other, by helping one another to learn the use of system utilities and programming environments, and by assisting each other in locating bugs. However, in order to avoid inadvertently becoming involved in a case of academic dishonesty (for example, when another student submits a program which is suspiciously similar to yours), you are advised to:

• protect your computer account with a secure password, changed frequently;
• ensure that copies of your program or work-in-progress are securely recycled or shredded;
• discuss programming principles and techniques with other students, not particular lines of code.

Course Outline:

The approximate dates on which the various topics of the course will be presented, along with an indication of which pages of the textbook are to be read in connection with each topic, are given in the accompanying course outline.

NOTE: Policy about course outlines can be found in §23.4(2) of the University Calendar.

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