Course information

Important links

Book

The textbook for this class is Dive Into Systems, a freely available online textbook by Suzanne Matthews, Tia Newhall, and Kevin Webb. I'm trying this textbook for the first time for a few reasons: the previous textbook costs $170 new, and I suspect some of my previous CS208 students never bought it or read it; I'm familiar with the authors, who teach at schools similar to Carleton, and they know what they're doing; and the chapters I have read are good, and suitable for what we'll be doing this term.

You may also find this book helpful: The C Programming Language, 2nd edition by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. This book, often known as "K & R" after its authors, has been the essential reference and tutorial for C since 1978, and remains one of the cleanest and best introductions to a programming language ever written. I'm not requiring it for the course, since there are many C resources online and I like to keep the cost of textbooks down, but still, this is a great book that would be worth your time to read.

Grading

Your grade in the course will be determined by your performance on homework and quizzes (50%) and two exams (25% for an in-class exam during week 4 or 5, 25% for a take-home final).

Homework

Communication

Outside class time, I will communicate with you via the course website and our Slack workspace. I will send you the Slack invitation before the start of the term. You should plan to check the Slack #announcements and #questions channels once per day to make sure you have the most timely information about the course.

Collaboration

Working with your classmates is almost always a great thing. Sharing insights is fun and can enhance everybody's learning.

The main danger of collaborating on course work is in allowing your collaborator to do all the work, and thus all the learning.

For homework assignments (unless otherwise directed), you may do your homework alone or with one classmate. If you work with a partner, you should submit one copy of your work with both names listed in your submission. If you would like me to assign you a partner for any given assignment, let me know via Slack direct message and I'll do my best to connect you with somebody.

For takehome exams, you must work alone, using only the resources I explicitly allow.

If you have any doubts about what constitutes acceptable collaboration, let me know.

Working with a partner? Here's a little advice.

Academic integrity and using other people's code

This is a big topic, so I have a generic page specifically about using other people's code in CS classes. Please read it.

With that in mind, here are a few specifics about my expectations when you're programming for CS208.

Rough Schedule