CS 111 - Introduction to Computer Science I Syllabus

This syllabus is not a contract. We reserve the right to spend more time than scheduled on certain topics, less time on others and may, as a result, omit others. In short, the syllabus is a guide that represents our best thinking about the course at the time it was constructed.

Text: Intro to Java Programming, Comprehensive Version, Student Value Edition 12th Edition by Y. Daniel Liang

Summary: Liang text chapters 1-10, plus recursion, dynamic programming, use of Java data structures (lists, stacks, queues, sets, maps), and assorted topics (e.g. depth-first search, Monte Carlo simulation, packages, and lambda expressions).

Details:

• Chapter 1: Introduction to Computers, Programs, and Java - course overview, introduction to computing environment, creating, compiling, and executing Java programs (javac, java, eclipse)
• Chapter 2: Elementary Programming - Scanner, variables, primitive datatypes, arithmetic operators, arithmetic expressions, assignments, casting, software development process, common pitfalls
• Chapter 3: Selections - boolean type, if/if-else statements, common pitfalls, random number generation, logical operators, switch, if-else expression (a.k.a. conditional expression, selection operator, ternary operator), operator precedence and associativity, debugging in Eclipse
• Chapter 4: Mathematical Functions, Characters, and Strings - class Math methods, char type and operations, String type, binary, hexadecimal review (covered earlier with section 2.10.1), printf
• Chapter 5: Loops - while-loops, do-while loops, for-loops, loop choice, nested loops, break, continue
• Chapter 6: Methods - defining and invoking methods, return statements with/without return values, passing arguments by value, developing modular, reusable code, method overloading, variable scope, abstraction, and stepwise refinement
• Chapter 7: Single-Dimensional Arrays - declaration, creation, length, access, initialization, common array algorithms, for-each loop, copying contents from array to array, array arguments and return values, variable-length argument lists, linear and binary search, selection sort, java.util.Arrays methods, command line arguments
• Chapter 8: Multidimensional Arrays - 2D array declaration, creation, access, common operations, passing as arguments, 3D+ arrays
• Chapter 9: Objects and Classes - defining classes, creating objects, constructors, object reference variables, defining and accessing object fields and methods, Java library classes, static versus non-static, private access specifier, getter/setter methods, data encapsulation, object arrays, immutable objects, variable scope, keyword this
• Chapter 10: Object-Oriented Thinking - class abstractions in object-oriented programming, class relationships, design principles, wrapper classes and conversion to/from primitive types (i.e. auto-(un)boxing), BigInteger, BigDecimal, String, StringBuilder, StringBuffer
• Recursion and Dynamic Programming - recursive problem solving, base case(s), recursive step, recursive helper/auxiliary functions, recursion with dynamic programming
• java.util Package Goodies - Java Generics, ArrayLists, Stack, Queue (LinkedList), PriorityQueue, Set/HashSet/TreeSet, Map/HashMap/TreeMap
• Programming Practice - reading CSV files, linear regression, depth-first search, Monte Carlo simulation
• Using Packages and Lambda Expressions - adding packages to the build path (classpath), interfaces, lambda expressions, linear algebra and numerical methods examples