CIS 212 Spring 2009

Introduction to Computer Science III

Course Details

• Class Times
  • Lecture: MWF 13:00 - 13:50, 112 Lillis Hall
  • Lab: Lab is in B26 Klamath Computer Lab (basement of Klamath Hall),
    Wednesday 14:00 - 14:50
    Friday 9:00 - 9:50
    Friday 11:00 - 11:50

• Instructor: Dejing Dou
  • Office: Deschutes 303, phone 346-4572
  • Office Hours: F: 15:00-16:00 (or by appointment by emails to dou AT cs.uoregon.edu)

• Co-Instructor: Michal Young
  • Office: Deschutes 243, phone 346-4140
  • Office Hours: 11:00-12:00 MW

• Graduate Assistant: Dan Keith
  • Office: 237 Deschutes Hall, phone 346-1386
  • Office Hours: 11:00-12:00 TTH

• Reference Material

  Required Text: Invitation to Computer Science: Java, 3rd edition, by G. Michael Schneider and Judith L. Gersting, Course Technology, 2006.

  One reading packet is also required and is available at the bookstore.

• Grading and Policy
  • Approximate grade weighting: Assignments 25%, Quizzes and class/lab participation 20%, Midterm 25%, Final 30%
  • CIS pre-majors must take CIS 212 graded; others may take it graded or P/NP.

Course Objectives

• CIS 212 will continue to explore aspects of problem solving and programming. We will learn about
  the complexity of an algorithm and compare complexity measures. We will also gain an
  understanding of the fundamentals of computer architecture and programming languages,
  including language processors. The emphasis in the course is on concepts, but the assignments will provide
  an opportunity to implement programs in Java that illustrate or use the conceptual material.

CIS 212 Academic Honesty Policy

• All assignments turned in for the course must be your own work. Copying from other
  class members or other sources is not acceptable. If you collaborate with someone else on any
  assignment, you must indicate such on the work you turn in, and partial credit may be given.
• Academic honesty is expected and cases of suspected dishonesty will be handled according to university
  policy. In particular, copying someone else's work (including material found on the web) will not be tolerated.
  If solutions to assignments are obtained from outside sources, the source must be cited.
• You are also responsible for protecting your work. That is, you must take reasonable precautions
  to prevent your work from being copied. This means that file permissions must be set to keep others
  from accessing your files. After working on assignments in the lab, you must remove any of your files from the lab machine.

CIS 212 Advice

DOs:

• Read the textbook and readings. Relevant chapters are listed in the course syllabus.
  The text provides the core information - if you read the material before class, you will get more out of the lectures.

• Read through the entire homework/lab assignment as soon as it is assigned so you know what to be
  looking for in lectures and the readings. Do not wait until the topic is covered in lecture to start thinking and
  working on the assignment. Lectures will give you a deeper understanding of concepts and go through
  examples. Lectures are not your sole source of information, the discussion/lab sessions are geared toward the assignments.

• Do your own work. You can discuss the problems with classmates, but then start over and work them out yourself.
  Otherwise it is very easy to fool yourself into thinking that you understand the material well enough to do it
  yourself. The exams and quizs are worth over 50% of your grade and you will be on your own in the exams, so learn to work on your own.

• Go to labs. They give you a head start on your homework and can save you many hours.
  Lab attendance is required and contributes to a portion of your grade.

• Ask for help if you are still stumped after you have made a sincere effort to figure something out.
  When you have an idea for solving a homework problem feel free to run it by the professor or GTF.
  This can save you enormous amounts of wasted time. Again, you want to do this early, not the night before the
  due date when we may not be available.

• Document your code with comments. Write all software as if it will be seen by experts and be around for a long time.
  Comment your code as you are writing it or even before you write the actual code. If you can't write meaningful comments,
  then you probably don't have a clear understanding of your design.

• Use the Java API documentation. Become familiar with how to read the API. The holy grail of software development is re-use,
  so learn how to find and use existing classes and methods.

• Aim for elegant solutions. Don't be satisfied with a "quick and dirty" program to just produce the correct results,
  but refine your work to the best solution possible. After you think you are done, go back over your code
  and double check and polish it.

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