CS 201 - Spring 2025. 1/15/2025.

If you're thinking of taking CPSC 201, please do the following.

• Complete this online Student Information form.
• Get a course account for CPSC 201 on the Zoo. When you register for this class, your course account should be created within one hour or so of signing up.
• Start the reading assignment: [Assignments].
• Familiarize yourself with the Zoo computers with classmates or ULAs or on your own using the Zoo tutorial, Spring 2014 edition. We will discuss UNIX in class in the coming weeks and throughout the term. The compiled staff solutions to the problem sets are available for execution on the zoo. There is also an interactive UNIX tutorial available on the zoo.
• (Optional.) Download and install DrRacket on your computer (Racket) and familiarize yourself with it (Choose language: "Use the language declared in the source", #lang racket. Then press the Run button to actually change the language.) If you don't want to install and run DrRacket on your machine, you may run it in person or remotely using your Zoo account.

Announcements

Come join STEM Navigators at our Spring Kickoff + STEM Extracurricular Bazaar on Friday, January 17th, from 3:00–4:00 PM at the Poorvu Center, Room 120A! Enjoy hot chocolate and cookies while meeting STEM Navigators mentors and members from 13 of Yale’s STEM organizations, representing fields ranging from healthcare to computer science and engineering. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the STEM Navigators program, explore Yale’s STEM extracurriculars in a focused and intimate setting, and discover ways to engage with the STEM community. RSVP here, and check out the list of participating extracurriculars here. Everyone is welcome to attend, regardless of involvement in STEM Navigators!”

The Big Picture

1. Tell the audience what you plan to tell them.
2. Tell them.
3. Tell them what you told them.

To some of you, the organization of topics in this course may seem hazy, like the shadows in Plato's cave. I want to assure you that, like in Blackadder, there is a cunning plan.

For years, academic computer scientists have debated the role of programming in introductory computer science courses. Many have argued that an introductory science course should expose the student to the great ideas of the discipline. Thus, an introductory biology course should cover topics such as evolution and molecular genetics, but not how to build a microscope. Accordingly, a computer science course should emphasize the major intellectual issues of computing, not how to write programs.

We do not agree with this position. First, programming is a major intellectual issue in computer science. Second, the comparison of programming to building a microscope misses the point. Writing programs in computer science is more like building a living organism in biology. If biology had advanced to a stage that permitted introductory students easily to construct amoebas and clams and roses and rabbits, there would be little debate over the intellectual content of such exercises. (Slade, The T Programming Language, 1987)

• Progamming and recursion. Learning racket allows us to have a grounded conversation.
• Turing Machines. What are the limits to computing?
• Boolean functions. What are the logical atomic elements of computation on which machines are built?
• Gates and circuits. How do we wire up circuits?
• TC 201 and computer architecture. How do we build a computer?
• Strings and formal languages. How do we translate high level source code into machine language?
• Computational complexity. Being computable is not sufficient if the algorithm is not efficient. How do we analyze algorithms?

Note: there are three other rules for public speaking...

Racket.

Collatz.html (jupyter) collatz.rkt

Racket.html (jupyter)

Getting to know UNIX