CSC 104, Winter 2012: Course topics

Part I: Introduction to computing machinery.

Timetable: the first two weeks of the term.

Some material used:

• The statement of that ages problem
• Notes on problem-solving in Brookshear section 5.3, including Polya's problem-solving phases.
• The photos and most of what I said while opening up a CDF computer
• Example data flow diagrams presented in class: [add two typed numbers], [date formatting].
  (They're just examples! You certainly don't have to know them!)
• The "ASCII" character code
• Discussion of what an algorithm is is in section 5.1 of Brookshear (also read intro to chapter 5), and also maybe see section 5.3 (more difficult).
• Some sketchy notes about "algorithm", hardware, software
• Tutorial discussion about hard disks referred to http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm

Part II: Modern computing.

Timetable: approximately January 19, 24, and 26.

References:

• Secondary storage and hierarchical filesystems:
  • Roughly what I wrote on the chalkboard or overhead display is in secstorage.html
  • It's not about filesystems, but some discussion of hierarchical organization and "tree" terminology in general can be found in the text and figure on page 374 of Brookshear and figures 8.2 and 8.3 (page 352 and figure 8.3 in the ninth edition; page 321 and figure 8.2 in the previous edition). A "plain file" is a leaf-node of the filesystem tree; internal nodes are directories; and we also talk about the "root directory" of a filesystem.
• Operating systems:
  • Brookshear 3.1 through 3.3, but that's more in-depth than we're discussing in this course
• Data communications:
  • Brookshear chapter 4, especially 4.1 and 4.2
• The web
  • Brookshear 4.3

Part III: Data representation; numeric expressions.

• basic numeric expressions, using the 'print' statement in Python
• comma-separated multiple 'print' items in Python
• Giving names to numeric expressions, and to sequences of statements
  • example mortgage calculation programs developed/presented in class (some in part III, some in part VI)
• String expressions (just a bit)
• Spreadsheet programs:
  • We will be using "gnumeric" as an example in the lab and for assignment three. Gnumeric is nearly identical to Microsoft Excel in the syntax of formulas and the set of formatting options available. But all spreadsheet programs are basically the same, and when you know one, you more-or-less know them all.
  • Discussion of projectile example problem and solution
  • Projectile example spreadsheet in /u/ajr/104/a3/projectile.gnumeric on CDF.
  • Projectile example in python in /u/ajr/104/a3/projectile.py on CDF.
• Boolean expressions, and 'if' formulas in a spreadsheet program.
• See collected expression syntax
• Basic data representation: bits and bytes; base two numbers; converting to and from base two; a few notes about representing other kinds of data
• "Markup languages": Some basic HTML. See collected HTML tag list
• See Brookshear sections 1.4 and 1.5, and ASCII chart on page 597
• various small bits of python code written in class for part III (not too exciting, but in case you transcribed something wrong and can't get it to run)
• At some point I did something similar to a loop to validate input

Part IV: History of computing machinery.

Some material used:

• Section 0.2 of Brookshear
• Some of the computer history material and some of the photographs are from Michael Williams, A History of Computing Technology. But much of it is just stuff I've accumulated over the years from a very wide range of sources. Photographs can often be found on the web these days, especially via http://images.google.com.
• There is some interesting historical material comprising chapter 1 of the book from which I learned the IBM 1130 assembly language, Elements of IBM 1130 Programming by Wilson Price, Rinehart Press, 1968; it's in the U of T library system.

Part V: Application: Time-keeping.

Timetable: approximately March 13, 15, and 20.

[Example python code written in class in this unit]

Part VI: Computer programming.

Schedule:
To some extent we've been gently introducing computer programming all along; but we'll get into it more seriously during the above time-keeping discussion, and then continuing in greater depth for March 20, 22, and 27, with a discussion of the Bresenham line algorithm (for lab 5) on March 27.

Bresenham line algorithm as discussed on March 27, and as used in lab 5

Binary search presentation shown in class

Example python code written in class in this unit:

• Linear search, first version and more involved but more useful version
• Code to guess the number the user is thinking of using the binary search principle, not shown in class
• binary search code developed in class
• insertion sort code developed in class

Part VII: Computers and society.

Schedule: approximately March 29, April 3, and April 5. We will only have time to cover a little of the above-listed topics.

An introduction to the ideas about software freedom. Remember that a large number of the software packages you use on a regular basis are in fact "free" in this sense. Also note that there are free substitutes available for just about all large software packages, including operating systems as well as "office" software.

The bit I read in class about Susan Thunder was from the book Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Katie Hafner and John Markoff, Touchstone, 1991. The thing which makes this book unusual amongst other similar books is that the content is actually technically correct and historically accurate. But it's primarily a non-technical book and I think you should find it quite readable.