Syllabus for Computer Science 201a

Introduction to Computer Science, Fall 2007

Dana Angluin

dana.angluin@yale.edu

414 AKW, 432-1273

Office hours: TBA and by appointment

Teaching Assistants

Eric Chen

eric.chen@yale.edu

cell: (917) 402-7528

Office hours: TBA and by appointment

Andreas Voellmy

andreas.voellmy@yale.edu

310 AKW, 432-1204

Office hours: TBA and by appointment

Textbooks

The following textbook is optional. It is available online at The Scheme Programming Language

• R. Kent Dybvig, The Scheme Programming Language, Third Edition MIT Press, 2003.

Other Resources

Web page

The course web page is at http://zoo.cs.yale.edu/classes/cs201. It contains various useful materials (including this syllabus) and will be updated regularly.

Logical and physical access to the Zoo

The Zoo is a collection of computers located on the 3rd floor of AKW at the front of the building. You will need a course account on the Zoo to submit homework after the first assignment. Sign up for a CS 201 course account on the Zoo using the on-line signup procedure at http://zoo.cs.yale.edu/accounts.html. There will be help sessions on using the Zoo early in the term. A Zoo tutorial will be distributed in class and will be available on-line from the webpage. For after-hours and weekend physical access to the Zoo machines, you will need to get your ID validated by signing up in class or 009 AKW.

Course directory

The course directory, /c/cs201 is accessible from your Zoo course account. It contains copies of handouts, including homework assignments in machine-readable form.

Course Requirements

The course requirements consist of class attendance, (more-or-less) weekly programming assignments in Scheme and occasional written homework, and two in-class exams. There will be no final exam. Plan on spending between 6-8 hours per week on the course outside of class. The programming assignments are an integral part of the course.

Please try not to leave the homework to the last minute. You will be more efficient, learn more, have more chance to get help, and generally be calmer and happier if you do the associated reading first and start the programming or other problems early.

Grading

The final grade in the course will be based on class participation, your performance on the programming assignments and other homework and the exams. The weighting of these components will be discussed in class.

Late Policy

Late work without a Dean's excuse will be assessed a penalty of 5 points per day, based on the day and time recorded by the electronic submit program. If you have a Dean's excuse, making up missed work may involve alternative assignments, at the discretion of the instructor; please check with the instructor in this case.

Policy on Working Together

Unless otherwise specified, the homework assignments are your individual responsibility. Plagiarism is a violation of University rules and will not be tolerated. You must neither copy work from others nor allow your own work to be copied.

You are encouraged to ask others for help with the computers and Unix, with questions about Scheme, general questions about the concepts and material of the course, or with casual questions about your program, but if you need more extensive help with a program or other assignment, please ask a TA or the instructor for assistance. Working in groups to solve homework problems is not permitted in this course. Please talk to the instructor if you have any questions about this policy.

Topics covered

The following on-line list of lecture summaries is from the course as taught by me in Spring 2007 (in reverse chronological order): lectures-Spring-2007.html. It will give you an idea of the topics of the course; the order and emphasis may be somewhat different.