SCS Curriculum Reinvention Committee

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COMP 1405/1406 Redesign

Topic Brainstorming

Add topics here at the end of the section. Please don't remove anything!

• WHAT IS COMPUTER SCIENCE
  • problem solving
  • algorithms
  • abstraction and problem decomposition
  • efficiency ??
• PSEUDO-CODE ??
• SEQUENCING INSTRUCTIONS
  • top down coding in sequence (e.g., draw a house)
• VARIABLES
  • declaring vs. assigning
  • memory usage ??
  • constants
  • examples:
    • compute simple math formulas
    • interactive input (e.g., use mouse position)
    • motion (if doing graphics)
• CONDITIONALS
  • simple IF/ELSE
  • nested IF
  • booleans(AND/OR)
  • examples:
    • make choices based on runtime input
    • basic state machine
    • edge cases / error checking
• ITERATION
  • repeating X times (REPEAT)
  • counting (FOR)
  • repeating until condition (WHILE)
  • nested loops
  • examples
    • sum/avg/max/min
    • counting matches
    • MonteCarlo approximation
    • loop until user input
    • searching (find first match)
• ARRAYS (1D and 2D)
  • initializing and memory usage
  • simple 1D (sum.avg/max/min)
  • insert/remove
  • copy/growing array
• Sorting
• Search
  • linear
  • binary
  • exhaustive
• Divide and conquer
• Dynamic programming
• FORMATTING
  • string manipulation
  • display in columns (i.e., tabbing)
  • display dates/times
• Data structures
  • lists
  • structures
  • tuples
• OBJECTS
  • instance variables
  • initialization (constructors)
  • shared references
  • static vs. instance
• FUNCTIONS and PROCEDURES
  • simple computations and return values
  • passing parameters
  • passing arrays as parameters
  • helper methods
• RECURSION (likely 1406 material?)
  • inductive definitions of data and associated recursion patterns.
  • direct vs. indirect
  • tail recursion
  • examples:
    • math problems (factorial/sum/avg)
    • searching mazes
    • iterate a non recursive data structure (array)
    • iterate a recursive data structure (e.g., tree)
• PERSISTENCE (likely 1406 material?)
  • writing files
  • reading files
  • parsing files
• WINDOWING
  • display text output
  • get textfield input
  • buttons
  • design and layout
  • handling events
  • menus
  • dialog boxes
• GRAPHICS
  • drawing with lines/shapes
  • grabbing/selecting/moving graphical objects
• PROPER CODING STYLE
  • encapsulation
  • polymorphism
  • private/public/protected data
• INHERITANCE
  • class hierarchies
  • abstract vs. concrete classes ?
  • overriding/inheriting methods
  • type-casting (needed if JAVA used) ?
• NETWORKING ?? (1406 ... as interesting examples)
  • read internet page
  • two applications talk over network
• Event-driven programming
• Model-View-Controller (more for 1406)
• Database APIs
  • Allow use of key/value stores as used by standard websites
• Testing and debugging
  • design vs. implementation errors
  • basic test cases, regression testing?
  • basic debugger usage
  • strategies for identifying and fixing programming problems
• Software licenses
  • open source and commercial
  • restrictions on reuse
• How to read code
• editing and building software
  • basic IDE usage
• commenting, code formatting guidelines
• revision control
  • have students grab class code from this, pull updates
  • make commits/push to submit?
• Understanding APIs
  • basic idea of contract, side effects
• Concurrency/parallel code
  • maybe not standard locking but some clean parallel constructs?
• Relative costs of operations
  • memory vs. I/O vs. computation
  • very basic benchmarking
  • main idea: know that you can't predict what is going to be fast in practice w/o tests

• my first wiki entry ever! - djh

Should we copy the MIT 6.00 outline here?

Sub categories?

Yes, we can add sub categories here.

Weekly Outline

We'll put the weekly outline here