General Information
Instructor
Matt Bishop
Office: 2209 Watershed Sciences
Email: mabishop@ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-8060
Office Hours: MWF 11:00am–12:00pm, or by appointment, or by chance
Teaching Assistants
All office hours will be held in 53 Kemper Hall, except as noted above.
Lectures
MWF 10:00am–10:50am in Rock Hall
Discussion Sections
| Section | Times | Room | TA |
|---|
| A-01 | W3:10pm–4:00pm | 230 Wellman | Gabriel Castillo |
| A-02 | Tu2:10pm–3:00pm | 119 Wellman | Ajiinkkya Bhaalerao |
| A-03 | F4:10pm–5:00pm | 119 Wellman | Apoorva Rangaraju |
| A-04 | M2:10pm–3:00pm | 204 Art | Jonathan Vronsky |
| A-05 | F8:00am–8:50am | 119 Wellman | Pallavi Kudigrama |
| A-06 | W8:00am–8:50am | 119 Wellman | Brian Perry |
| A-07 | Tu9:00am–9:50am | 147 Olson | Zhige Xin |
Course Outline
Introduction to computers and computer programming, algorithm design, and debugging. Elements of good programming style. Programming in the C language. Use of basic UNIX tools.
Course Goals
Some goals we hope you achieve:
- develop expertise in using a high-level programming language (specifically, C);
- be knowledgeable in using basic operating system tools (specifically, Linux- or UNIX-based tools);
- develop good programming style; and
- develop into competent programmers with the ability to solve problems of reasonable size on a computer.
Prerequisite
You should take Math 16A or 21A (taking them concurrently is fine).
Also, you should be able to write a program in a high-level language to solve a problem;
see the handout Prerequisite Problem for an example.
Text
We will be using an on-line version of the book
J. Hanly and E. Koffman, Problem Solving and Program Design In C, Eighth Edition, Pearson Education Inc., Boston MA (2016).
See the handout Digital Resources for more details.
Computers
All registered students have been given an account on the computer science instructional machines in the basement (the Computer Science Instructional Facility, CSIF). Use your campus login and password to log in.
Class Web Site
The class web site is on SmartSite.
To access it, go to http://smartsite.ucdavis.edu and log in using your campus login and password.
Then go to ECS 30 in your schedule.
Announcements, assignments, handouts, and grades will be posted there,
and you must submit assignments there. The alternate web site,
http://nob.cs.ucdavis.edu/classes/ecs030-2015-04
has everything except grades, and you cannot submit work there.
Homework
All homework is due at 11:55pm on the date stated on the homework, unless otherwise specified. The handout All About Homework discusses homework.
Extra Credit
Extra credit is tallied separately from regular scores.
It counts in your favor if you end up on a borderline between two grades at the end of the course. But, not doing extra credit will never be counted against you,
because grades are assigned on the basis of regular scores.
You should do extra credit if you find it interesting and think that it might teach you something.
Remember, though, it is not wise to skimp on the regular assignment in order to do extra credit!
Exams
Midterm: Wednesday, October 28 in class
Final:Wednesday, December 9 at 8:00am–10:00am
These will be closed book and closed notes exams. No early or late exam will be given; if you miss an exam for medical reasons (you must document this; no other excuses are acceptable), you may be allowed or required to take a make-up exam, or the other parts of the course will be counted proportionally more (the choice is the instructor’s). In particular, forgetting the time or place of an exam is not an excuse for missing it!
Grading
Homework is work 50% of your grade; the midterm and final exams are each worth 25%.
Academic Integrity
The UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct, available at http://sja.ucdavis.edu/cac.html, applies to this class. In particular, for this course:
- All work submitted for credit must be your own. You may discuss your assignments with classmates, with the instructor, or with the teaching assistant in the course to get ideas or a critique of your ideas, but the ideas and words you submit must be your own. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, collaboration is considered cheating and will be dealt with accordingly.
- For non-programming homework questions, you must write up your own solutions and may neither read nor copy another student’s solutions.
- For programs, you must create and type in your own code and document it yourself. Note that you are free to seek help while debugging a program once it is written.
A good analogy between appropriate discussion and inappropriate collaboration is the following: you and a fellow student work for competing software companies developing different products to meet a given specification. You and your competitor might choose to discuss product specifications and general techniques employed in your products, but you certainly would not discuss or exchange proprietary information revealing details of your products. Ask the instructor for clarification beforehand if the above rules are not clear.