Class profile:

This class consists primarily of 2nd year and 4th year students.  Everyone is in ICS or Informatics and fulfilling a requirement.

75% of you own a laptop and all of you have used Eclipse in some capacity already.  While most people are comfortable programming in Java only half of you seem to “love” it.  Fewer of you are comfortable writing code in C++ and fewer still are comfortable coding in C.  15% strongly dislike programming.

Half of you own a domain name. Half of you believe that Google uses AJAX.  Half of you are comfortable writing Javascript. Half of you can write well-formed XML.  Half of your are comfortable writing a CSS.  I suspect that it is all the same half.

Unfortunately, only one of you owns a Nokia Series 60 phone - the platform that we are targeting in this class.  Despite, that, about 25% are familiar with the OS that runs on it.

Few people know what an IRB is, although a modest number, 32%, have conducted a user study before.

Opinions vary uniformly and widely on whether or not lectures are a good way to teach.