Course Expectations and Tentative Syllabus

 

CSC:230                                             Programming Concepts and GUIs                Fall 2006

 

Section 01                Meets:                  MWF  12:00noon-12:50pm   Room: 201 Olney Hall

Lab Tues 2:00pm-3:45pm      Room 201 Olney Hall

 

Professor:         Dr Redmond                                                          Office Hours: MWF 10:00-10:50am

                                330 Olney Hall   (215) 951-1096                                                                          M 2:00-3pm

                                redmond@lasalle.edu                                                                                          Th 10:30am-12:30pm                                                            http://www.lasalle.edu/~redmond/teach/230                                                   And at other times by appointment

 

Text:

Zak, D., Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Reloaded, Second Edition, Thomson Course Technology, 2007

ISBN: 1-4188-3623-0

 

Course Description:

This course is an introductory computer science course, primarily for computer science, information technology, mathematics, and science majors. Not to be confused with an introduction to using computers (151/152/154), this course places a heavy emphasis on learning to write computer programs. It introduces the major types of programming constructs that are common to most languages. It emphasizes proper programming techniques, to give a firm foundation for future courses and for the workplace. This course also provides exposure to the Visual Basic programming language, which is popular in the marketplace due to its ease of creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs).

An important part of the class is the two-hour lab each Thursday. Your regular attendance is expected, as with other class meetings.

 

Prerequisite: You must be competent in basic operation of a computer, (which can be demonstrated by successful completion of CSC 151, 152 or 154 OR by passing the competency test administered by the department during DAY ONE).

 

Grading:                                            Final Grades:

   Quizzes                               10%                                                                        B+     88-89             C+     78-79             D+     68-69           

   Assignments                                     20%                                        A     92-100            B       82-87             C       72-77             D       60-67

   Exam 1                                 20%                                        A-    90-91              B-      80-81             C-      70-71

   Exam 2                                 20%                                                                                                                                        F        < 60

   Final                                    25%       

   Class Participation            5%

 

                Quizzes will be short, 10 minutes or less, with one or a few questions, given at the beginning of class, typically on Friday. Latecomers to class will not be given extra time to complete the quiz. Lowest quiz score (or one missed quiz) will be dropped.

                   Assignments will typically be assigned on a Wednesday, possibly with “pre-lab” preparation work to do, hands on time in the lab on Thursday, and “post-lab” work to do, due the following Wednesday.

   Do your own assignments !!!!  Work that is copied or done with somebody (when not assigned to a group) will be punished. If programs are copied, both students will receive a zero for the assignment. Changing small aspects of a copied program does not make it not a copy. Asking another for help on a step or two in a many-step assignment is acceptable; looking at another person’s program is temptation for cheating; handing in a program with even section(s) that are nearly duplicate is cheating

 

   Late Assignments  -25% per weekday (NOTE - NOT per CLASS. I want work turned in on time)

      UNLESS SPECIFIED OTHERWISE ASSIGNMENTS ARE DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS

      -10% if handed in after start of class and before I leave for the day.

 

   Makeup exams only by advance arrangements or for documented real emergencies, such as medical problems. Makeup may involve double-counting your final exam.

 

   The Final Exam is cumulative, though it will focus more on the (previously untested) final third of the course.

 

   Class participation grade will be assigned based on 1) attendance, 2) in class contribution, and 3) “minute papers” turned in at the end of each class. These minute papers may vary in content, including reflection, questions, etc from class. More details will be given in class. The formula for calculating class participation is available upon request.

 

Materials:  You will need a means of handing in assignments – CD or diskettes usually work better than e-mail. Generally assignments will be handed in and a new assignment will be started on the next day - before the previous assignment is graded – so you need more than one. If e-mailing – the entire project (many files) must be zipped together and sent. You will also want to keep a backup copy of anything turned in – the network drive or a USB drive work well for this. You will need access to Visual Basic and Microsoft’s Visual Studio development environment outside of class. This is installed on PCs in labs in Olney 200/200A/201. The software can be downloaded for free via the ELMS program. (The book may include a CD with VB and VB  2005 .NET. If so, that is an alternative as well. Last year students had more success with the book CD than with the ELMS approach).

 

Open Lab Location:             Olney 200A is available (small number of computers) irregular hours (most of the day, but not late)

                                                Olney 200 and 201 are occasionally available when not being used for classes.

 

E-mail: You will need to check e-mail regularly. Announcements are frequently sent via e-mail. Assignments and information may also be posted on my WWW page.

 

 

Course Objectives

 

1. Teach systematic program development and debugging techniques.

 

2. Demonstrate basic programming statements including IF-THEN-ELSE, Loops, Subroutines.

 

3. Demonstrate use of built-in data types.

 

4. Demonstrate use of classes, an implementation of the concept of abstract data types.

 

5. Demonstrate use of file processing.

 

6. Demonstrate use of Arrays.

 

7. Demonstrate the creation of graphical user interfaces and the handling of “events” such as mouse-clicks

 

8. Emphasize the importance of DOCUMENTED code.

 

9. Provide experience writing, testing and debugging programs.

 

                                

 

 

 


Tentative Course Plan:

 

The course is extremely unlikely to follow this exactly. Attending class is the best way to know adjustments (especially with regard to exams)

 

Estimated

Date

Book Pages

Topic

Days

8/28

 

Intro to Class

1

8/30

2-32

Development Environment and Creating Interface

1

8/31 LAB

78-91

Creating Interface

1

9/1

72-77

Planning an Application

1

9/6, 9/8

128-144

Variables

2

9/11, 9/13

144-165

Simple Coding

2

9/15, 9/18, 9/20

166-169, 195-205,

206-226

Selection - IF

3

9/22, 9/25

226-238

Nested IF/ ELSEIF / CASE

2

9/27, 10/2

269-273

Repetition – For Next Loops

2

9/29

 

TEST – Chapters 1-4

1

10/4, 10/6, 10/9, 10/11

294-299

300-325

DO LOOP

4

10/13, 10/16, 10/18

431-451

Sub Procedures

3

10/20

451-455

Function Procedures

1

10/23

 

FALL BREAK – NO CLASS

 

10/25, 10/27, 10/30

562-567

567-571

Files

3

11/1

495-502

Arrays

1

11/3

 

TEST 2 – Chapters 5,7,9

1

11/6, 11/8, 11/10

502-516

Arrays

3

11/13, 11/15

516-525

Parallel Arrays and 2-Dimensional Arrays

2

11/17, 11/20, 11/27

551-562

Structures

3

11/22, 11/24

 

THANKSGIVING – NO CLASS

 

11/29, 12/1, 12/4, 12/6, 12/8

597-617

Classes and Objects

5

Wed Dec 13 12:30- 2:20

 

Final Exam (Tentative!!)