CSE 341 -- Spring 2000

Administrivia & Useful Information

Class Meetings

Lectures, MWF 12:30-1:20, EE1 045 (New building)

Quiz AA, Th 8:30-9:20, EE1 125 (I think!)
Quiz AB, Th 9:30-10:20, EE1 125 (I think!)

Objective

Our objective is to learn fundamental programming language concepts. We approach this by acquiring practical experience with a set of five very different programming languages -- Scheme, Perl, Java, Miranda, and CLP(R). There will be an emphasis on object-oriented languages, and we'll have one or two lectures on Smalltalk in addition to the Java lectures (although no programming assignment for Smalltalk). Following the study of the individual languages, we'll finish up by a comparative discussion of programming language concepts in these and other languages.

Prerequisite: CSE 143

Texts

The only required book is: The following books are recommended references for the other languages. However, I put a set of books on reserve in the Engineering Library, and if you're short of money you can get away without buying them. We'll also have handouts and online reference material for the languages.

Assignments and Grading

There will be a moderate-sized programming assignment for Scheme, Perl, Miranda, and CLP(R), and a project in Java. There may also be some some written homework. There will be an open-book midterm and final.

Here is the grading structure.

programming and other assignments 35%
Java project 25%
midterm 15%
final 25%

Individual grades may vary slightly, based on effort, contribution to class and section, etc.

Cheating

Students are expected to do the assignments on their own, except for assignments explicitly labelled as group assignments. Any cases of cheating that we discover will be sent to the College disciplinary committee.

However, we also want to be clear on what is legitimate collaboration -- please help each other out in this class in appropriate ways! It is OK to help other students debug their programs, and to discuss general approaches to solving problems. After having such a discussion, though, you should go do something else for at least half an hour, for example watch an inane TV show, before independently working on your solution. (This is sometimes called the Gilligan's Island rule.) However, it is not OK to copy someone else's code or homework solution.

Exams must of course be done on your own. Both the midterm and final will be open book and open notes.

Late Assignments and Incompletes

Late assignments will be marked down as follows:

25% off -- up to 1 day late
50% off -- up to 2 days late
75% off -- up to 3 days late

"25% off" means that 25% of the maximum possible score is taken off of the score for the late assignment. "Up to 1 day late" means up to the time of lecture on the day following the day the assignment was due, and so forth. For example, if the assignment is due on a Friday, "up to one day late" means until 12:30 pm on Saturday, "up to 2 days late" means until 12:30 pm on Sunday, and "up to 3 days late" means until before lecture on Monday. Send e-mail to the TA du jour if you want to turn in a homework late to arrange to get it to him. (Sorry to sound so picky about this -- but I've had problems with very creative interpretations of the late policy in the past.)