Introduction to Programming in Java (Accelerated)

Winter 2019

Charlie mcdowell

teaching Assistants

Dhawal Joharapurkar

Fahim Hasan Khan

Rongwen Zhao

lab Tutors

Kayla Beaman

Priya Padmanaban

Nelson Perez

Course Website

http://cmps012a-winter19-01.courses.soe.ucsc.edu

What this course is

An introduction to programming using Java

An introduction to theoretical problems in computer science

What this course is not

We do not talk about (in any depth):
- Applications of computing
- Other programming languages (C, C++, Matlab, Python, etc.)
- History of computing (well, not much)
- How to use Microsoft office or create a web page(!)

Course Objectives

Understand fundamentals of programming.
Understand fundamentals of object-oriented programming.
Gain exposure to the important topics and principles of software development.
Have the ability to write computer programs to solve specified problems.
Use software development environment to create, debug, and run programs.

Honor Policy

You may freely give and receive help with the computer facilities, editors, debugging techniques, the meaning and proper use of programming language constructs, built-in functions, etc.. You should not discuss your design or implementation of the programming assignments with students other than your partner until after they are turned in. In particular you should not view another person/pair's program, or allow someone (other than your partner) to view any part of your program, prior to the due date for that assignment. Obviously, copying any part of another person/pair's program, or allowing your program to be copied is not permitted. A program, Moss, will be in use to detect copying. If you have any questions on this important point, please see me.

Honor Policy

If you should happen to use some actual code you got from someone other than your partner (such as the TA or some tutor or a previous partner or your room mate or an online resource) you MUST credit that person with a comment preceding the code in question. This could also come up if you were discussing a program with another student from the class and ended up writing some code on scrap paper or a white board. The safe and proper thing to do in this situation would be to insert a comment in your program where that code snippet is used. At worst you might lose a few percentage points if it was a really key part of the assignment. Failure to draw attention to the code snippet with a comment could result in a charge of academic dishonesty.

Give credit where credit is due!

Grading Policy

Zybooks challenge/participation/labs (daily) (10%)

Lab assignments (most weeks) (10%)

Programming assignments (every 2 weeks) (10%)

Bi-Weekly quizzes (best four out of five) (30% or 40%)

Final (40% or 30%)

Quiz and final weights will be automatically chosen to give you the highest score.

My Philosophy: Hard But Fair

Fairness is a challenge in a class of 350 students
If you feel something is not fair, you need to let me know. I will do my best to correct it
If you think that this course is too easy, let me know. I will do my best to correct it

Textbook

We will use an online interactive book
Zybooks:

Sign in or create an account at learn.zybooks.co
Enter zyBook code: UCSCCMPS12AMcDowellWinter2019
Subscribe: A subscription is $40 and will last until April 4, 2019. You will receive a $15 gift card if you complete a post class survey.

Expectations

12A+12L = 7 units
3 hours/week/unit = 21 hours per week
You start with 3.25 hours in class.
Plan to spend at least 15 minutes on average for each section of the textbook assigned. This varies so if you have a light day consider reading ahead to even out the load. Plan 6-8 hours per week or 2-3 hours per lecture doing the reading and completing the challenge and participation activities due at noon on class days.
Plan to spend 4 hours on average each week working on the programming assignments due every two weeks.
Plan to spend 2 hours every week preparing for and completing the lab assignment.
Round out the 21 hours with optional textbook sections or reviewing difficult sections.