Instead of simply introducing you to a programming language, the course will concentrate on program design issues - in particular, object-oriented design. You will find the approach quite different from that used in most introductory programming texts. Experience shows that these conventional approaches allow you to develop poor programming practices which then need to be erased from your memories as you learn strategies for designing large software systems!
The programming language will be ANSI standard C. As you will probably be aware from the popular computer press, Java is the computer language which is growing fastest in popularity. Java is based on C, so most of what you learn will be applicable directly in Java. The object-oriented design techniques used here are necessary in Java, so you will be able to translate programs written for this course trivially to Java - or the other popular object-oriented language, C++.
Unit co-ordinator: Dr John Morris, 4.17 email: morris@ee.uwa.edu.au
| Monday | 10 am | Engineering Lecture Theatre 1 |
A report on each laboratory should be submitted electronically within 7 days of your laboratory session. Some - not all - of these will be marked for assessment purposes. You will not be told in advance which assignments are to be marked, so you must make sure to submit a report for every practical session to avoid losing marks. Each submission should consist of a short report and the program files. A 1-2 page report will generally be adequate.
Laboratory Schedules - 1999
Jump to laboratory schedules for 1999.
You may also like to attend additional practice classes when the tutors are there to help you. If there are sufficient computers, you may attend any class, but students scheduled for that class have priority.
Remember that the computers are available 24 hours a day (except when booked for classes), so there is plenty of opportunity to practise.
The final one (in the last weeks of second semester ) will be marked on a pass/fail basis. Full details of this test may be found in the assessment section.
You may also seek help from the lecturer - see communication below.
| Weight | ||
|---|---|---|
| Laboratory Reports | 3 (chosen at random) |
10% |
| Assignments | 1 | 4% |
| 2 | 6% | |
| Practical Tests | 3 hours (End of Semester 1) | 10% |
| 3 hours (End of semester 2) | Hurdle | |
| Examination | 2 hours | 70% |
Notes:
| You must pass the second semester practical test to pass the unit as a whole. | |
| If your enrolment is | then not passing the practical test means | CLP110 | failing the whole unit. | CT105 | you will be awarded 0 marks for the CLP110
component. You may still be able to pass by averaging more than 67% in both other components. |
|---|---|
| You will have multiple opportunities to pass the test. | |
|
Laboratory reports and assignments are compulsory.
Failure to submit any one of them may cause you to fail the whole unit. Please read carefully the Faculty policy on plagiarism. The temptation to make electronic copies of others' work may be strong, but the chance that you will be detected is high and the consequences are best avoided! The safe policy is to make sure to acknowledge the source for all material which is not your own work: at the worst this will result in loss of marks, but it will avoid much more onerous penalties! |
In first semester, you will be expected to complete laboratory reports only. In second semester, you will have two assignments to complete - but will be required to submit only two laboratory reports.
Do not forget to include your name, student number and email address on your report.
You may attempt these assignments in groups of no more than 6 students. The report submitted with the assignment should clearly indicate the names of the students who contributed to the submission. You may decide amongst yourselves how the work for the assignment is split between the group members. Some can do the programming, some the testing, some writing the report, etc.
Needless to say, simply persuading some of your more obliging
friends to add your name to the list of contributors to any
assignment is a dangerous practice.
Knowledge gained from attempting the assignment will help you
pass the practical test and the written exam.
It is strongly suggested that you work as a group on the whole
assignment,
so that each and every member of the group
understands how the final submission was constructed
and could reproduce the submitted program working alone.
This allows you to concentrate on the content of the report, rather than the cosmetics of its format. However, the general standards for report structure and organisation (title, authors, introduction, body grouped into related paragraphs, conclusion, etc) expected for any other unit apply here also.
These tests will be taken under examination conditions (no talking, collaboration, etc) in the laboratory.
You may bring one C textbook which contains no additional notes added by you into the test. Highlighting sections which you consider important or adding bookmarks is permitted. If you are in the habit of adding extensive margin notes to your textbooks, then it is strongly suggested that you borrow an unmarked text from a colleague for the duration of the test. While an occasional annotation will be overlooked, you may be excluded from the practical test (and required to sit it at another time) if your text contains an unacceptable number of additional notes.
Further details on the mechanisms for sitting this test will be available at the beginning of second semester.
The preferred method for communication with the lecturer and tutors is, at least initially, email. All routine queries will be handled this way: we will attempt to respond to all email messages by the next day. If you have more complex problems, email for an appointment (suggest a few times when you will be free).
This should not deter you from coming to talk to me at any time you have difficulties, want to argue about the philosophy of the course, want to discuss your assignments, laboratory reports, what to take next year, sailing, good food or wine or anything else that takes your fancy .. try to find me in my office at any time (but early in the morning is likely to be a waste of time!). However emailing for an appointment first ensures you some priority and enables you to avoid wasting a trip to the 4th floor when there may be zero probability of success because other students have got there before you. Unfortunately, Senator Vanstone's mangling of the education budget has meant that we are unable to provide a comfortable waiting room if you have to wait while someone else's problems are sorted out first! It's unlikely that her successor will be able to do anything much very quickly, even if, by some miracle, the current government discovers that not investing in education is a very short-sighted philosophy.
There is a home page set up for course information:
http://swww.ee.uwa.edu.au/~ct105On which, you will general course information; you can follow the links to this page and the notes themselves. If the main page is unavailable for any reason, you may find the notes also at:
http://ciips.ee.uwa.edu.au/~morris/
In all cases, the browser's "Back" command should take you back to the original page.
A list of possible texts has been prepared. What constitutes a good text is a very personal issue. The way any particular author explains any subject may appeal to you, whereas another student may find it too detailed, too trivial, boring or ... It is suggested that you may like to group together with a few of your class-mates and buy a few different texts which you can share around the group. In that way, you can read a number of authors' explanations of difficult points - one of them is bound to 'strike a chord' with you!
Criteria which make a text acceptable and useful for this course (and for reference in courses in later years) are: