Course Expectations and Tentative Syllabus
CSC:230 Programming Concepts and GUIs Spring 2007
Section 01 Meets: MWF 11:00-11:50am Room: 111 Olney Hall
Lab Thurs 11:00am-12:45pm Room 201 Olney Hall
Professor: Dr Redmond Office Hours: MWF 10:00-10:50am
330 Olney Hall (215) 951-1096 MWF 12:00noon-12:50pm
redmond@lasalle.edu And at other times by appointment http://www.lasalle.edu/~redmond/teach/230
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. DO NOT hand in a USB drive (they are small, easy to lose, and generally have other things of value to the student). 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 |
1/17 |
|
Intro to Class |
1 |
1/18 LAB |
2-32 |
Development Environment and Creating Interface |
1 |
1/19 |
78-91 |
Creating Interface |
1 |
1/22 |
72-77 |
Planning an Application |
1 |
1/24, 1/26 |
128-144 |
Variables |
2 |
1/29, 1/31 |
144-165 |
Simple Coding |
2 |
2/2, 2/5, 2/7 |
166-169, 195-205, 206-226 |
Selection - IF |
3 |
2/9, 2/12 |
226-238 |
Nested IF/ ELSEIF / CASE |
2 |
2/14, 2/19 |
269-273 |
Repetition – For Next Loops |
2 |
2/16 |
|
TEST – Chapters 1-4 |
1 |
2/21, 2/23, 2/26, 2/28 |
294-299 300-325 |
DO LOOP |
4 |
3/2, 3/12, 3/14 |
431-451 |
Sub Procedures |
3 |
3/5 – 3/9 |
|
SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS |
|
3/16 |
451-455 |
Function Procedures |
1 |
3/19, 3/21, 3/23 |
562-567 567-571 |
Files |
3 |
3/26 |
495-502 |
Arrays |
1 |
3/28 |
|
TEST 2 – Chapters 5,7,9 |
1 |
3/30, 4/2, 4/4 |
502-516 |
Arrays |
3 |
4/6, 4/9 |
|
GOOD FRIDAY, EASTER MONDAY – NO CLASS |
|
4/11, 4/13 |
516-525 |
Parallel Arrays and 2-Dimensional Arrays |
2 |
4/16, 4/18, 4/20, 4/23, 4/25 |
597-617 |
Classes and Objects |
5 |
4/27 |
|
Catch up |
|
Mon Apr 30 10:30- 12:20 |
|
Final Exam (Tentative!!) |
|