Staff

Course Details

Aims

Topics covered include:

• fundamental programming concepts
• program testing and debugging
• the underlying memory representation of data
• programming style

Student Learning Outcomes

Assumed Knowledge and Relation to Other Courses

COMP1917 is designed for CSE students, and for any student with a keen interest in computing, regardless of their degree program. COMP1911 and COMP1921 cover similar material to COMP1917 and (part of) COMP1927, but move at a more gentle pace.

Students are required to attend 3 hours of Lecture per week, plus a 1-hour Tutorial and a 2-hour Laboratory class. There will also be three 1-hour Prac Exams during the session.

Tutorials give you a chance to clarify ideas mentioned in lectures and to practice your problem-solving skills in a small (and hopefully more personal) class with the assistance of a tutor. You should make sure that you use them effectively by examining the material to be covered before each week's tutorial, asking questions, offering suggestions and generally participating. The tutorial questions will be posted on the Web in the week before each tute. Tutorials are one hour long and they are scheduled to start in Week 2 of session. There will often be a couple of extra questions, which are not covered during the tutorial. You may use these for practice or revision.

Students will also be required to make a brief presentation, in pairs, at the beginning of one tutorial during the session.

Laboratory classes give you a chance to practice programming skills on small examples, which have been chosen to highlight particular aspects of programming. Your tutor will be present in your Lab class to answer any questions you may have.

All Lab exercises must be shown to your tutor during your scheduled lab class. The Lab exercises will be available during the session via the course's Web page. Students are advised not to fall behind in their laboratory work. In order to get a mark for a lab exercise you must show your tutor a completed or partially completed solution before the end of your scheduled lab class in the week that the exercise is scheduled. If you cannot complete the exercise by the end of the lab you may complete it in your own time and submit it using the give command by midnight on the following Sunday. Your tutor will then mark it at the very beginning of the next scheduled lab class. Note: To gain a mark you must at the very least: show your tutor a partial solution; and, submit a completed solution using give by midnight the following Sunday. After that time, you will not receive a mark for that particular lab exercise. If you are unable to attend your scheduled lab class due to illness or misadventure, then you should apply for special consideration and an extension may be granted. Note: You can only have your lab work marked during your scheduled lab class. It is not possible to have your work marked in another class.

To make sure that you can complete the work in your scheduled lab class, you should make an effort to prepare the work beforehand. You can make use of a terminal in a laboratory simply by booking a time-slot. You have sufficient bookable Lab time available each week to allow you to prepare your lab exercises; make good use of it.

Component	Mark
Programming Assignment 1	8%
Programming Assignment 2	12%
Laboratory Exercises	9%
Tutorial Presentation	1%
Prac Exam 1	5%
Prac Exam 2	7%
Prac Exam 3	8%
Final Exam (Practical)	20%
Final Exam (Written)	30%
Total	100%

All work submitted for assessment must be your own work. Lab exercises and assignments must be completed individually. We regard copying of assignments or lab exercises, in whole or part, as a very serious offence. We use plagiarism detection software to search for suspiciously similar submissions. Collaborative work in the form of "think tanking" is encouraged, but students are not allowed to derive code together as a group during such discussions. Students are also warned not to send code fragments of the assignments or labs to each other in any form (e.g. as email or listings). In addition, copying/purchasing of code that is available on the Web is also not permitted. Students who are singled out during our regular plagiarism sweep will be dealt with according to School Policy, which provides serious penalties particularly in the case of repeat offences:

Time	Location (tentative)
Tue 3-4	Webster Th A
Wed 10-11	Biomed Th D
Wed 5-6	Biomed Th D

The three Prac Exams will be held on Friday afternoons at 1pm. The first of these is planned for Week 6.

Here is the list of planned topics, an estimate of the week in which the topic will be presented, and the relevant chapter/section of the textbook.

COMP1917 Computing 1: Course Notes

The recommended textbook for this course is:

Alistair Moffat, Programming, Problem Solving, and Abstraction with C, Pearson Educational, Australia, 2003, ISBN 1-74103-080-3.

Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, The C Programming Language, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall, USA, 1988, ISBN 0-13-110370-9.

Jeri R. Hanly and Elliot B. Koffman, Problem Solving and Program Design in C, 4th edition, Addison Wesley, 2004, ISBN 0-321-21055-7.

H.M. Deitel, P.J. Deitel, C How To Program, 4th edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2004, ISBN 0-13-122543-X

A.S. Tanenbaum, Structured Computer Organisation, 4th edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1999. ISBN 0-13-0204358.

1. check the subject Message Board or CSE forums for an answer to your question
2. post a question on the subject Message Board or CSE forums
3. ask one of your COMP1917 peers
4. ask your tutor
5. attend a consultation session

The School Web site has useful information that may be of help:

Course Evaluation and Development

Student feedback for this course will be obtained via electronic survey at the end of session, and will be used to make continual improvements to the course. Students are also encouraged to provide informal feedback during the session, and to let the lecturer in charge know of any problems, as soon as they arise. Suggestions will be received constructively, and every reasonable effort will be made to address them.

Good Luck!