Computer Science 121 - Fall 2009

Announcements

• Programming assignment six is now available at AssignSix
• Extra credit problem - Fixing a Sudoku solver, is now up -- it's ExtraTwo
• The learning resource center has tons of tutoring hours for this course. See: www.umass.edu/lrc
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• Unless indicated otherwise, embedded questions inside trapdoor book sections (e.g., the Regular Expressions section in 3.5) can be considered extra credit.
• Class Office hours are in LGRT 223 (CS department edlab). TA is located in the back room - the edlab is a double room. All office hours are at CourseAdministration

Here is how to access the iJava textbook:

Students on the initial class roster have the following UN, PW:

UN = student id (8 digit); PW = last name, all lower case.

Instructions are given below. You can see the instructions directly by clicking on iJavaStart.txt. The other file, iJavaStart.doc, is a download.

How to download Java, and the DrJava Development Environment

Go to the CourseResources link. Attached, at bottom, are .txt files that explain how to get the Java JDK, and DrJava . Remember that if you have problems with either of these chores, go to one of the discussions sections tomorrow for help. If you do decide to go to a discussion meeting on Wednesday for help, and if you use a laptop, bring it along -- this will make helping you easier.

Important Course Layout Information

121 is built around a free, online interactive textbook that will be available around September 8. The course has a somewhat unusual format, which requires considerable initiative on your part. First, the textbook is an online "laboratory" for learning to program in Java. It contains around 150 embedded problems, most of which involve small, easy programming chores that are tied to the textbook narrative. These problems are worth 8% of your course grade (8 final points out of 100). The value of each problem is linked to the course schedule. There are two lectures for each book chapter, a first one on Thursday, and a follow-on lecture the following Tuesday. Then there are discussion sections on the next Wednesday. Each embedded question is worth 3 points if it's completed by the beginning of the relevant Thursday lecture. If the problem is completed after that time, it's worth just 1 point. Thus if you do all of the embedded problems in the book in the last 48 hours of the course (not recommended!) you get 150 out of a possible 450 embedded question points - which translates to 1/3 of the 8 points possible on this phase of the course. Of course if you do all of the embedded problems in a timely manner, you get 450 out of 450 possible points, or a full 8 points possible toward your final grade. Finally there's one additional incentive - the real incentive - for doing the embedded problems in a timely manner. Each Thursday lead lecture on a particular chapter/topic will assume that you've read the chapter and have had a go at the embedded questions. So to get the most out of the lectures, you've got to come to class with at least some understanding of the text material.

For most weeks, discussions 1 and 3 will be devoted to basic review: if you're feeling like you don't quite get the material in the current chapter, for example, go to one of these discussions. At the same time, discussions 2 and 4 will address more advanced topics during most weeks. These topics will vary over the course of the semester. You are free to change which discussions you go to - you can go to review sections some weeks and advanced sections other weeks, or you can go to a review section at 1:25 and an advanced section at 2:15, or you can skip the discussions altogether. It's your call. Please note that the section you signed up for when you registered for the course should have no relation to the section or sections you attend.

121 provides extensive help to students in other forms. In particular teaching assistants will offer mostly one-on-one help in the CS department educational laboratory (edlab, LGRT 224) for approximately 10 hours during the week, and the UMass learning resource center http://www.umass.edu/lrc/ , which is based in the Main Library, also offers high quality assistance. The TA office hour schedule is at CourseAdministration.

The other elements of the course are: OWL weekly online homework assignments - these are generally more challenging than the problems embedded in the text; eight programming assignments, where you (usually) write a complete Java program, either by yourself or occasionally in collaboration with a friend; a midterm; and a final exam. Point assignments for these aspects of the class can be found at CourseAdministration.