CS 2301 B Term 2006
Systems Programming for Non-Majors

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What this course is about

The goal of CS 2301 is to help students with prior program design experience migrate their skills to a model of programming where the programming language exposes details of how the hardware stores and executes software. This course is intended for non-computer science majors who wish to take upper-level courses in the systems area of the computer science curriculum. Recommended background and course topics are listed in the WPI undergraduate catalog course description

Course Objectives

• Be able to design, implement, test, debug, and document programs in C
• Understand how a program in a procedural language transforms data by changing the contents of memory cells
• Be able to program with pointers and perform pointer arithmetic
• Be able to write programs that perform manual memory management
• Understand how the stack is used to implement function calls
• Understand low-level input and output routines
• Use Unix commands to manage files and develop programs

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Staff

Instructor: Glynis Hamel (GH)

Teaching Assistants: Jason Chang (JC), Jeff Zhou (JZ)

Senior Assistant: Paul Sader (PS)

Office Hour Schedule

(Note: TA/SA office hours are held in FL A22 (Fuller basement). Glynis Hamel's office hours are held in FL 132.)




Day/Time	10:00	11:00	12:00	1:00	2:00	3:00	4:00	5:00	6:00	7:00	8:00
Monday					GH		JC	PS	PS	JZ	JZ
Tuesday	GH	JZ	JZ		JC	JC	JC
Wednesday
Thursday		GH
Friday					GH			PS	PS




Announcements, Class Discussion Board and Email

A discussion board for CS 2301 has been set up on myWPI . All students enrolled in the course have access to this discussion board. You should visit the discussion board and check the Announcements on myWPI on a daily basis.

If you have a question regarding your grades in the course, please send email to cs2301-staff *at* cs.wpi.edu. Mail sent to this address goes to the instructor and to the TAs. Include your section number in all correspondence.

The instructor's email address is ghamel *at* cs.wpi.edu. Please restrict your use of my personal email address to issues of a confidential nature. You will get a quicker response if you post your questions to the class discussion board.

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Lecture and Lab Times

Lectures meet MTRF from 1:00-1:50pm   in AK 233

Labs meet on Wednesdays according to the following schedule:

Section	Time	Location	TA/SA
B01	11-11:50am	AK 120d	JC / PS
B02	1:00-1:50pm	HL 230	JZ / PS

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Textbook, Software, and Authors' Website

Textbook (required): Deitel, H. M., and P. J. Deitel, C How to Program, 5th edition, Prentice Hall, 2007. (If you find a used copy of the 4th edition, that's fine, too.)

Software: We will be using the GNU C compiler (gcc), available through your WPI Unix account. You will be given instructions on how to use the compiler during the lab sessions.

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Grading

Exams (60%)

Three exams will be given. Exams are tentatively scheduled for November 9, November 28, and December 14. You must have a passing average on the exams in order to pass the course. (A passing average on the exams is usually around 65%. We may lower this threshold if the exam averages are low; the threshold will not be raised).

Exams are closed-book, closed-notes. You may bring in one sheet of notes (one paper, 8.5" x 11.5", both sides) to each exam. You may not use any computers, calculators, cellphones, or other electronic devices during the exams.

There are no makeups for exams. Absence from an exam will be excused only for medical or emergency reasons. A note from your doctor or from the Office of Academic Advising will be required. In such cases your final grade will be recorded as Incomplete and you will be allowed to take a makeup exam the next time the course is offered.

Homework (30%)

Six homework assignments will be given. Assignments will be due at 11:59pm on the due date. No extra credit or makeup homework assignments will be given.

Labs and In-class Group Work (10%)

Labs will be given during conference sections on Wednesdays. To get credit for a lab you must attend at your scheduled time, actively work on the assignment during the lab period, and use turnin to turn in your work at the end of the lab period. Each lab will be graded as either credit (1) or no credit (0). You will not get credit for a lab unless you attend the section for which you are registered. There are no makeups for labs.

Several times during the term we will take a few minutes of class time for in-class group work. This will consist of one or two questions related to recently-covered lecture material or homework problems. Each group assignment will be graded as either credit (1) or no credit (0). There are no makeups for group assignments.

The total of your best 10 lab grades/group assignment grades will be added to your final average to account for 10% of your final grade.

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Academic Honesty Policy

Please read WPI's Academic Honesty Policy.

Labs and In-class group work

Collaboration is encouraged for labs and in-class group work.

Exams and Homework

Exams and homework are to be done individually. You are encouraged to talk with others in a general way about homework assignments (what approach to take, for example), but any work you submit for grading must be your own. Some examples of situations that would be considered academically dishonest are
• two or more students write the solution or part of the solution to a homework assignment together
• all or part of a solution to a homework assignment is copied from another student (with or without that other student's consent)
• all or part of a solution to a homework assignment is copied from a book, journal, or website
• providing all or part of a solution to a homework assignment to another student

If you receive general help from another student or an outside source, that student or source must be acknowledged in the documentation accompanying your submitted work.

Cheating will not be tolerated. If you are unsure whether a given activity would constitute cheating, ask the instructor. Violations of the Academic Honesty Policy can result in an NR for the course, and violators will be subject to the procedures outlined in section 5 of the WPI Judicial Policy.

Late Policy

Late homework will be accepted within 24 hours of the due date. Each student will be allowed one late submission without penalty. Beyond that, late homework will incur a 25 point (out of 100 points) penalty. Any homework turned in after the 24-hour grace period will receive a grade of zero. No extra credit or makeup homework assignments will be given.

Homework Submission Policy

Homework must be submitted using the Unix turnin program. Homework submitted by any other means (paper, CD, email, etc.) will receive a grade of zero.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accomodations in this class are encouraged to contact the Disability Services Office (DSO) as soon as possible to ensure that such accomodations are implemented in a timely fashion. The DSO is located in Daniels Hall.

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Schedule

Note: the instructor reserves the right to change the order of topics or the dates of the exams, if necessary.

Week	Reading	Topics	Assignments
Oct 24 - 27	Chapters 1-4 Lecture 1 objectives Lecture 2 objectives Lecture 3 objectives	Course overview intro to I/O: scanf, printf Boolean expressions if-statement loops data types and casts compiling and executing C programs	Lab 1 (Wed, 10/25) Homework 1 (due: Tuesday, 10/31)
Oct 30 - Nov 3	Chapter 5 (sections 5.1 - 5.14, 5.16) Lecture 4 objectives Lecture 5 objectives Lecture 6 objectives Lecture 7 objectives Source code for Towers of Hanoi	function definition function calls call-by-value documenting functions scope and storage class recursive functions	HW1 due Tuesday, 10/31 Lab 2 (Wed, 11/1) Homework 2 (due: Tuesday, 11/7)
Nov 6 - 10	Chapter 6 (sections 6.1 - 6.5, 6.9) Chapter 7 (sections 7.1 - 7.5) Lecture 8 objectives Lecture 9 - Review Sample Exam 1 (pdf file) Lecture 10 - Exam 1 Lecture 11 objectives	arrays Exam review/catch up Exam 1, Thursday, November 9 pointers simulating call-by-reference with pointers pointer arithmetic	HW2 due Tuesday, 11/7 Lab 3 (Wed 11/8) Homework 3 (due: Tuesday, 11/14)
Nov 13 - 17	Chapter 7 (sections 7.7 - 7.10) Chapter 8 (skim sections 8.3, 8.4) Lecture 12 objectives Lecture 13 objectives Lecture 14 objectives Lecture 15 objectives	pointers and arrays chars and strings C string functions arrays of pointers makefiles	HW3 due Tuesday, 11/14 Lab 4 (Wed 11/15) Homework 4 (due: Tuesday, 11/21)
Nov 20 - 21	Chapter 10 (sections 10.1 - 10.6) Chapter 11 Lecture 16 objectives Lecture 17 objectives Thanksgiving break	structs sequential- and random-access files	HW4 due Tuesday, 11/21
Nov 27 - Dec 1	Chapter 12 (sections 12.1 - 12.4) Lecture 18- Review Lecture 19 - Exam 2 Lecture 20 objectives Lecture 21 objectives	Exam review/catch up Exam 2, Tuesday, November 28 dynamic memory allocation linked lists	Lab 5 (Wed 11/29) Homework 5 (due: Tuesday, 12/5)
Dec 4 - 8	Chapter 12 (sections 12.5 - 12.7) Lecture 22 objectives Lecture 23 objectives Lecture 24 objectives Lecture 25 objectives	linked lists stacks, queues binary trees hash tables	HW5 due Tuesday, 12/5 Lab 6 (really, lab 5 from last week) (Wed 12/6) Homework 6 (due: Tuesday, 12/12)
Dec 11 - 14	Lecture 26 objectives Sample Exam 3 (pdf file) Lecture 27 - Review Lecture 28 - Exam 3	hash tables Exam review/ catch up Exam 3, Thursday, Dec 14	HW6 due Tuesday, 12/12


http://www.cs.wpi.edu/~cs2301/b06/index.html