CSCI 112: Fundamentals of Programming II

General Information

Brief Overview

This is a second course in programming and problem solving with Python. Topics include:

- the design and implementation of data structures and abstract data types
- an introduction to object-oriented design
- a survey of collections, including their formal properties, implementations, and applications
- an introduction to complexity analysis for assessing the space/time tradeoffs of various algorithms and data structures
- a survey of searching and sorting algorithms
- a detailed study of arrays and linked structures

Classroom work will consist of lecture and discussion. Written work will consist of several programming projects, homework exercises, three hourly exams, and a comprehensive final exam.

Readings

The following textbook is required:

Lambert, Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures (Cengage Learning, 2014, ISBN 978-1-285-75200-6).

Hard copies are available at the University Store. You may view an online copy at Safari Books with your W&L credentials.

Grading

The written work for the course will consist of

- Programming projects (50% of the grade)
- Three hourly exams (30% of the grade)
- A final exam(20% of the grade)

The grading scale will be 93-100 A; 90-92 A-; 87-89 B+; 83-86 B; 80-82 B-; 77-79 C+; 73-76 C; 70-72 C-; 67-69 D+; 63-66 D; 60-62 D-; below 60 F.

Attendance

Attendance at labs is required. The only excuses for missing a lab are medical and other serious emergencies. If you miss a lab without an excuse approved by me, you will receive a grade of 0 for that lab. Excuses must be submitted to me before the lab, if possible.

It is very important that you attend lectures. There will be considerable information given in lectures that is not available elsewhere. You should come to lectures and labs prepared to participate in discussion.

Be respectful of your classmates and the instructor. The use of laptops and mobile computing devices are permitted during class so long as they are being used for the course, such as for taking notes and locating information related to the course. These devices are NOT to be used during class for texting, phone calls, reading email, social networking, completing assignments for other courses, or shopping.

Accommodations

Washington and Lee University makes reasonable academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. All undergraduate accommodations must be approved through the Office of the Dean of the College. Students requesting accommodations for this course should present an official accommodation letter within the first two weeks of the (fall or winter) term and schedule a meeting outside of class time to discuss accommodations. It is the student’s responsibility to present this paperwork in a timely fashion and to follow up about accommodation arrangements. Accommodations for test-taking should be arranged with the professor at least a week before the date of the test or exam.

Final Exam Policy

The final exam for this course will be given during the final exam week. The exam will be distributed electronically for you to complete in no more than three hours. You can return the exam to me via github.

Academic Integrity

The hourly exams and the final exam should be written individually and pledged.

Although you may discuss programming problems among yourselves, your programs should be your own work, unless otherwise specified (as when you are told to do pair programming). You MAY use code from the PowerPoint slides or from the textbook for the course. Otherwise, you may NOT use the work of your classmates, former students, friends, or anyone else in writing your programs. By “use” I mean turning in the work of others as your own, or even casting your eyes upon the work of others with a view to incorporating their solutions into your own. Deliberate concealment of sources constitutes plagiarism and will result in a failing grade for the course and a report to the EC. Deliberately providing solutions to other students, either verbally or in writing, via hardcopy or electronic transmission, will result in a failing grade for the course and a report to the EC. In particular, you may not share your work until the deadline to hand in material has passed. Please familiarize yourself with W&L’s policy on plagiarism.

Tentative Schedule

	Monday	Wednesday	Thursday Lab	Friday
05 Sep Week 0			Course Intro / Ungraded Assessment	User interfaces: TUIs, GUIs, and ZUIs
12 Sep Week 1	GUIs: Handling user events	GUIs: Panels and widgets for input and output	Lab1	List boxes and popup dialogs
19 Sep Week 2	Overview of collections (Chapter 2)	Searching, sorting, and complexity analysis (Chapter 3) big_o.py	Lab 2	Finding faster algorithms
26 Sep Week 3	Array-based structures (Chapter 4)	Introduction to linked structures	Lab 3	First hourly exam
03 Oct Week 4	Iterators (Chapter 5) linkedlist.py	Equality (Chapter 6)	Lab 4	Lists (Chapter 9)
10 Oct Week 5	Stacks (Chapter 7)	Stack applications	Reading Day; no lab	Reading Day; no lab
17 Oct Week 6	Stack applications	Queues (Chapter 8)	Lab 5	Binary Search] Trees (Chapter 10)
24 Oct Week 7	Review for exam	Second hourly exam	Lab 6	Discuss exam
31 Oct Week 8	Tree Search	Heaps (Chapter 10)	Lab 7	Heaps (Chapter 10)
07 Nov Week 9	Bucket Sort (Chapter11) (tutorial video)	Implementations of dictionaries (Chapter 11)	Lab 8 linkedheap.py	Hashing / Review for third exam
14 Nov Week 10	Third hourly exam	Discuss exam	Lab 9 mobydick.txt	Introduction to graphs (Chapter 12)
28 Nov Week 11	Introduction to graphs (Chapter 12)	Graph algorithms	Lab 10	Beyond Python: Inheritance, Abstraction, Interface
05 Dec Week 12	Beyond Python: A sip of Java	Beyond Python: A taste of Haskell Datatypes Typeclasses	Lab 11	Review for final exam