Week 01 Tutorial Questions

  • Introduce yourselves, get to know your classmates - Why do they want to study computing? What do they want to learn from this course?
  • Get to know your tutor - How long have they been at UNSW? What are they studying? How can you get in contact with them?
  • Do you have any questions about the course so far? eg course website, structure, assessments
  • Is it OK to ask a really really basic question on the course forum?
  • I have a brain the size of a planet and been writing C programs since pre-school - do I need to read the course forum?

  • How do you make a peanut-butter sandwich?

    How could you break that process into steps?

    How could you break it down clearly enough that a computer could understand it?

    Maybe your tutor could do a live demonstration of following your exact instructions...

  • What is an operating system?

    What operating systems do your classmates run? The tute room? The CSE lab computers?

    What are the differences between each of the various operating systems? What differences are there in their interfaces, and how do you interact with them?

    What are some different ways in which you can interact with a computer?

    What are the differences between graphical user interfaces and the command line? When might one be better than the other?

  • Discuss the following features of the sample program from lectures: 
    // Basic Hello World program
// Marc Chee, September 2020

#include <stdio.h>

int main (void) {
    printf("Hello World\n");
    
    return 0;
}
  • Write a C program, face0.c, that behaves as follows: 
    ./face0
~ ~
0 0
 o
 -

    How would you compile this program?

    How could we modify it to make a program, face1.c, look like this instead?

    ./face1
~ ~
0 0
 o
\_/
  • Logging In - This is the first part of the Lab, but since you can't see it in the lab until after you log in, the information is here:

    Once you are in your lab, one student from your pair should log into the lab computer.

    To log in, you use your zID (which looks something like z1234567) and your zPass (which is used to log into all other university online services).

    The CSE labs use the Linux operating system (not Windows or OSX or ...).

    When you log in, by default, you'll be using the xfce4 window manager, and you'll see a linux desktop.

    If you are asked to select a panel click on use default settings.

    Along with menus that you can see, such as the Applications Menu in the top left corner, it also has a simple menu you can access by right-clicking anywhere on the desktop.

    Have a look around and see if you can work out how to open a web browser.