Announcements

Folks,

A few clean-up things:

(1) The homework handout I gave in class apparently asked you to enter the numbers for problem 3 on the same line. Don’t do that; enter them on separate lines as shown in the example output. The on-line handout and web page both corrected this. (Also, the volume of the sphere is 4πr³/3; this too has been corrected in both the sample exam and the answers.

(2) One of the answers in the sample midterm used print "F", etc. instead of the correct print("F"), etc. This also has been corrected in the version posted to SmartSite.

(3) If you have a laptop, please bring it to class on Monday. Mina Doroud will show you how to use Python to interface with Facebook, and have some fun things you can try in class.

(4) The midterm is open book, open notes, and closed computer/laptop/cell phone/etc.

Good luck, all!

Hope this helps,

Matt Bishop

Folks,

I need to go to Bangladesh to talk about electronic voting systems. This means I will be gone for the next week or so, through the final. Unfortunately, the trip cannot be postponed.

I will have Internet access (I am told) while in Bangladesh, so I will be checking email regularly and also be monitoring the SmartSite chat room. If you have questions, I strongly encourage you to email me (or the TAs). Please note there is a 14 hour difference between Pacific time and Bangladesh time, so I may not answer immediately!

Also, Eilwoo Baik will cover my office hours. So instead of my office, please go to:

Wed 2:10pm–3:00pm in 2106 Watershed Science (it’s the Networks Lab)
Fri 12:10pm–1:00pm in 2106 Watershed Science (it’s the Networks Lab)

These are the same times as my office hours.

As for a final review session, Ming Xiao will do this in his laboratory hours, Monday 2:00pm–4:00pm in 2020 SciLab. All are welcome! I also just posted a study guide and sample final. The answers to the sample final are on SmartSite.

On Wednesday, Dr. Sean Peisert will discuss sorting, a problem in computer science that is closely related to searching and occurs in a variety of contexts. (For example, telling Facebook to sort your news items by “most recent first” is a command to sort.)

On Friday, Prof. Amenta will talk about classes in Python; these allow you to define your own data types, and are a part of what is called “object oriented programming”. This is a very popular paradigm in computer science, and if you take ECS 40 or other computer science courses, you will encounter it repeatedly.

Finally, the last lecture (on Monday, Feb. 19), will be on using Python to obtain information from Facebook. If you have a laptop, please bring it to class; Mina Doroud, who will be the guest lecturer, will show you how to interact with Facebook's APIs, which are interfaces that you can get information from using Python.

Hope this helps,

Matt Bishop

Folks,

The sample output for problem 3 had a cut-and-paste error; the last output should have said “below the healthy range”. It does now.

Also, as a point of information, the actual formula for BMI that uses pounds and inches has a multiplication by 703, not 720. But for your programs, please use the 720 number.

Hope this helps,

Matt Bishop

Folks,

I will be in my office from now until 5PM, if you have any last-minute questions.

Also, for a variety of reasons, I need to change my office hours next week. They will be:

Monday, March 5 ***cancelled; no office hours ***
Tuesday, March 6: office hours from 10AM-11AM
Wednesday, March 7: ***unchanged*** (office hours from 2PM-3PM)
Thursday, March 8: office hours from 8:30AM-9:30AM
Friday, March 9: ***cancelled; no office hours***

As always, I can be reached by email if you have questions or want to set up an appointment. Also, if you are comfortable with Skype, I'm happy to meet with you that way, too.

Hope this helps,

Matt Bishop

Folks,

Homework #4 is now posted. There is no extra credit for it.

Hope this helps,

Matt Bishop

Folks,

The sample midterm (and the answers) had a bad cut-and-paste error in the last problem. It has been corrected and new versions put out.

Also, the sample output for problem 1(a) in homework 3 has been corrected. The original had the sum of the cubes of the first 9 numbers, not the first 10. This too has been updated.

Hope this helps,

Matt Bishop

Hey ECS10ers,

khanacademy.com is a site that has video lectures on various topics and they happen to have a series on computer programming using python!

For those of you who need some extra help it might be worthwhile to view some of his videos.

Go to khanacademy.com and scroll down to the computer science section.

Ming

Change in Office Hours for Wed, Jan 18

More on Homework #1

Homework #1: Additions