ICS 31 & CSE 41 • FALL 2017 • DONALD BREN SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCES • UC IRVINE
ICS 31: Introduction to Programming
COURSE REFERENCE (SYLLABUS)
Instructor: David G. Kay,
5056 Donald Bren Hall (DBH) (kay@uci.edu)
Quick links: Assignments Partner App Quizzes Piazza (Q&A) (In Class) Textbook home page Resources Final Exam
Course goals: This course is the first of a three-quarter sequence introducing computer science through computer programming. This course will broaden your technical horizons, focus on systematic problem solving, and possibly change the way you look at the world. We welcome you and we hope you enjoy it.
Prerequisite concepts: This course does not expect any previous experience in computer science or computer programming. If you do have some experience, you will find some topics familiar but many others will certainly be new to you.
We do expect each student to be able to navigate the Windows systems in our labs, to navigate the World-Wide Web, to download and read documents in Adobe Acrobat (pdf) format, and to read and send electronic mail. Some of our assignments will require these skills. If you need to pick these skills up or sharpen them, do it in the first week of the quarter; speak with us if you need a hand.
Meeting place and times: Tuesdays and Thursdays, lecture meets 11:00 to 12:20 in Humanities Instructional Building 100.
Lab sections, TAs, and tutors: Each student must enroll in one of these lab sections:
| Lab | Time | Room | TA (Email @uci.edu) | Tutor(s) (subject to change) |
| 1 | MWF 8–9:20am | ICS 189 | Yathish Gangolli (ygangoll) |
Joyce Le, James Cho |
| 2 | MWF 9:30–10:50am | ICS 189 | Madhur Bajaj (bajajm) |
Tao Wang |
| 3 | MWF 11–12:20 | ICS 189 | Madhur Bajaj (bajajm) |
Jrei Dimaano, Marco Leon |
| 4 | MWF 12:30–1:50 | ICS 189 | Yathish Gangolli (ygangoll) |
Stanley Tang, Kevin Tran |
| 5 | MWF 2–3:20 | ICS 189 | Shreya Chippagiri (schippag) |
Ali Chaudhary, Andrew Vo |
| 6 | MWF 3:30–4:50 | ICS 192 | Shreya Chippagiri (schippag) |
Jerry Shen, Anna Qiu |
| 7 | MWF 5–6:20pm | ICS 192 | Pratik Shetty (ppshetty) |
Alvin Nguyen, Kenny Huynh |
| 8 | MWF 6:30–7:50pm | ICS 192 | Pratik Shetty (ppshetty) |
Gyulnara Grigoryan, Roman Barsegianx |
None of the 4.5 scheduled lab hours each week are optional (until you and your partner together finish the current assignment; you don't have to stay if your work is done). It is essential that you attend the lab you're officially enrolled in; the class is too full to accommodate "visiting." Most of your lab work will be done in pairs, so the scheduled lab times are the best times to work with your partner.
Office hours: You are welcome to drop by my office at any time. If I'm there and not immersed in something else, I'll be glad to chat about the course material or other topics. I will definitely be in or near my office during these scheduled hours, during which course-related matters will have first priority: Tuesdays from 1:30 to 2:00 and Thursdays from 10:00 to 10:30 (starting the first day of class and ending the last day of class). I may adjust these times at the end of the first week. Of course emergencies may come up, but I will try to give advance notice of any change. I'll also be happy to make arrangements for other times during the week; "making an appointment" is no big deal (but if you make one, don't skip it without getting in touch). The quickest and most effective way to reach me is by electronic mail, as described below.
Questions and announcements: You can get a response to your course-related questions most quickly by posting them at Piazza.com. If you need to reach one of us privately, use our individual IDs listed above. I will never intentionally ignore a message, so if you don't receive a response, write again; sometimes overactive spam filters snag a legitmate message. Using course-specific subject lines and your UCInet Email address will help your messages get noticed.
We will also send course announcements by Email to the official course mailing list, so you should check your Email daily. Note that this mailing list goes to the Email address that the registrar has for you (your UCInet ID). If you prefer to read your Email on another account, forwarding instructions appear below. Don't let this slide; if you miss official announcements, your grade could suffer.
This course's web page is at http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/31 and
official course Email is archived at eee.uci.edu; follow the link on your MyEEE page.
Textbooks and software: Our textbook this quarter is Introduction to Computing Using Python: An Application Development Focus, second edition, by Ljubomir Perkovic. The course resource page has more information about electronic versions and how to obtain them.
The Python software you need for your work (Python 3.6 and the IDLE environment) is installed on every machine in the ICS labs. Because every lab assignment is done with a partner, you'll do much of your work in the scheduled labs. You are also welcome to install Python on your personal machine; we just have to say that because everyone's computer is configured a little differently, we can't promise to fix the installation problems that may come up on your own machine.
At http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/31/refs.html
is a list of supplementary resources on course topics, including information about installing Python.
In-class activities: Most days in class, we will pause once or twice for you to solve a small problem and post your solution on Piazza; then we'll review selected solutions. We expect everyone to participate, which means you'll need to bring a laptop (see the ICS Laptop Policy). We'll use a separate Piazza group for this activity rather than the main ICS 31 Q&A group; this one is called ICS 31 IN CLASS; you'll need to sign up for it separately.
Labs and lab hours: Of course you will
need to do some of your work outside of the scheduled Monday/Wednesday/Friday
lab hours. Students in ICS 31 may use any of the school's instructional
computing labs except for times when another course is scheduled in the
lab exclusively. See http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lab
for lab hours and other information. Note in particular that all ICS labs
are closed on university holidays such as the Friday after Thanksgiving
(but not the Saturday and Sunday).
Please remember that programming tasks always take longer to complete than you think they will, no matter how much experience you have. You must account for this as you plan your time; we cannot accept busy schedules or time mismanagement as an excuse for late or incomplete assignments.
Course structure:
• Weekly lab assignments (30% of the course grade). All the assignments
will be available at http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/31/hw/.
• Class participation: Based primarily on participating consistently
and effectively in classroom activities and in the lab, including turning in a partner evaluation
for each lab assignment. Responding to various electronic surveys and
contributing on Piazza may help this score, too. (10%)
• Weekly quizzes: Given on line through EEE, available from Sunday afternoon through 11:00 p.m. Tuesday.
(10% together). Because these are self-graded, you get credit for completing them, whatever your answers. We cannot support make-ups for missed quizzes, since all you have to do is read them and submit answers each week on EEE. This is easy credit to get; just don't forget to do each quiz by Tuesday. There is more information at http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/31/quiz/ .
• Two midterms: Given in lecture, the first will be on
Tuesday, October 24, and the second on Thursday, November 16 (20%, with the second being weighted more than the first). We can't give make-ups for missed midterms, but if you miss one for a good reason (and let us know about it), we won't count it against your grade.
• One final exam: On Tuesday, December 12, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in our regular classroom (30%)
Your TA has primary responsibility for evaluating your work; see the TA first for any questions about grading or scoring. If that does not resolve your question, then see the instructor. To compensate for differences in grading between different TAs, we will calculate final grades for each TA's students separately rather than for the entire class as one group. Thus, comparison of scores between TAs is meaningless.
Lab scores will be recorded on the web in the EEE Gradebook. We will be happy to correct any errors that do occur, but we must ask that you bring your TA your grading questions within a week after the item is returned; the course moves quickly and we simply can't deal with assignments long past.
Our goal is to obtain the fairest overall grade outcomes. We find that we achieve this best by not committing in advance to a specific fixed point scale for assigning final letter grades in the course. Thus, no letter grades apply to anything until the end of the course and it is not possible to calculate your letter grade precisely until all the work has been done. Don't ask, "What grade am I getting so far?"; instead ask, "What more can I do to master the material?" or "What should I have done differently on this assignment (or exam)?" We urge everyone to focus not on letter grades but on learning what's necessary to earn high scores; the grades will follow from that. You should check EEE periodically to make sure your assignment scores have been recorded correctly. EEE also indicates where your score falls compared to other students; if you find yourself in the bottom quarter consistently, talk with your TA or the instructor.
We're required to say that in unusual circumstances, these policies may change, but we do not expect that to happen.
Special needs: Any student who feels he or she may need an accommodation due to a disability should contact the UCI Disability Services Center at (949) 824-7494 as soon as possible to explore the possible range of accommodations. We encourage all students having difficulty, whether or not due to a disability, to consult privately with the TA or instructor at any time.
What to do this week to get started in ICS 31:
— If you do not have a UCInet ID, get one (see http://activate.uci.edu/).
— Learn how to read electronic mail sent to your UCInet ID (see http://www.oit.uci.edu/email/). If you prefer to read your electronic mail on an account other than your
UCInet account, redirect your mail at http://www.oit.uci.edu/email/deliverypoint.html. If you don't read your course Email most every day, you may miss vital announcements.
— If you do not have an ICS account for access to the Windows network in
ICS, get one. See http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lab/students/acct_activate.php. The labs will have temporary IDs for the first week or two; get your own ID some time in that period.
— On the Web, go to checkmate.ics.uci.edu,
log in with your UCInet ID, choose "Fall 2017" and "Course Listing," click "Go"
next to ICS 31, and then click "List me for this course."
Use your UCInet ID (your Email adddress @uci.edu) for this. You'll submit most of your work electronically; this step is necessary
to set that up.
— Sign yourself up for ICS 31 Q&A for Fall 2017 at Piazza.com. Also sign up separately for ICS 31 IN CLASS activities (after changing the term to Other). Read a little bit there about how the site works.
— Get a lab printing key-card if you plan to do any printing in the lab. See http://www.ics.uci.edu/~lab/students/printing.php.
— Complete the survey at http://eee.uci.edu/survey/ics31.f17.q.
Good advice and helpful hints:
Make every effort to attend each class meeting; we will often cover material that isn't directly in the textbook. It's not fair to ask the TA simply to repeat lecture material you missed, though of course the TA will always answer questions about it. And even though UCI Replay recordings will be available for most class sessions, they don't capture everything that goes on in class and they aren't 100% reliable (i.e., some days there will be no recording).
Attend your lab section, too; you will do most of your lab work there, and you can get a fresh perspective from the TA or lab tutor. Don't hesitate to ask your TA to address topics that will help you. Since most of your work will be done with a partner, your partner also depends on your consistent presence.
Check your electronic mail regularly; this is an official channel for course announcements.
Keep up with the reading; you'll need it to do your assignments, and the quarter system goes so fast that a few missed pages can quickly become a few chapters if you're not careful. You will want to read the assigned sections early so you can ask us about parts that aren't clear.
The assignments, like all technical specifications, require careful and thorough reading and re-reading. Expect to refer back to the assignment often, and check it first when you have questions about what's required or how to proceed. Before you come to lab, be sure to read the assignment to get an idea of what's required.
Start each assignment early. Assignments will be due weekly, but you'll need to spend some time on them nearly every day, especially after the first couple of weeks. Programming always takes longer to complete than you think it will, even if you have previous programming experience. By starting early, you'll have time to ask in lab about problems you encounter.
If you find yourself having trouble or getting
behind, speak with your TA or the instructor. We have lots of ways to help.
But never take the shortcut of copying someone else's work and
turning it in; the consequences can be far worse than just a low score on
a lab assignment or exam. ICS takes academic honesty very seriously; for a more
complete discussion, see our course collaboration guidelines (http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay/courses/31/collab.html) and the ICS departmental web page covering academic
honesty issues (http://www.ics.uci.edu/ugrad/policies/index.php#academic_honesty).
Turn in whatever portion of an assignment you have completed on the due date. It's much better to turn in something rather than nothing; zeroes are hard to make up. In some circumstances you may arrange with your TA to work further on an assignment after the due date, but you must turn in whatever you have when the official due date comes. Likewise, don't skip any quizzes or partner evaluations if you can help it; too many zeroes will significantly lower your overall score.
Always keep your own copy of each assignment, both electronically and on paper; if an assignment should get lost in the shuffle (or if a file server in the lab should crash, which has happened), we'll expect you to be able to supply a replacement easily.
Approximate course outline:
| Week | Date | Topics |
| 0. | 28 September | Introduction to the course and computing • Models and abstraction |
| 1. | 3 October | Things (nouns)/objects/data/information and actions (verbs)/statements/operations/functions |
| 5 October | Evaluating expressions • Numbers, strings • Variables • Input/output, imperative programming | |
| 2. | 10 October | Multiple-valued data • Namedtuples • Lists • Programmer-defined functions, design recipe |
| 12 October | Programming with multiple-valued data • Basic selection (if) and repetition (for) | |
| 3. | 17 October | Arguments and parameters • Extended example |
| 19 October | Mutable and immutable data • Mutable parameters and function side-effects | |
| 4. | 24 October | — First Midterm — |
| 26 October | Programming with nested data structures | |
| 5. | 31 October | Strings and text processing |
| 2 November | Formatting output | |
| 6. | 7 November | Files |
| 9 November | Control structures revisited | |
| 7. | 14 November | Combining data structures |
| 16 November | — Second Midterm — | |
| 8. | 21 November | Two-dimensional tables |
| 23 November | — No class meeting: Thanksgiving — | |
| 9. | 28 November | Dictionaries |
| 30 November | Tuples and sets | |
| 10. | 5 December | Extended example |
| 7 December | Looking back and looking forward | |
| F. | 12 December | Final exam, Tuesday, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. |