Course Description
This course is a continuation of C programming from APSC 160. It is aimed at Electrical Engineering students who are not in the Computer Engineering option, and will cover topics in basic data structures, algorithms, and C programming. You will learn about pointers, recursion, linked lists, stacks, queues, searching, sorting, hash tables, trees, and graphs. Besides C, there will also be some work in Matlab (e.g., calling Matlab from a C program). Lab work will have in-lab and take-home components, including some short programming tests in the labs. Except for the in-lab programming tests, you will use pair programming for your labs. Plenty of TA help is available.
Course Schedule
Lab TAs
| Lab Section | Point of Contact Lab TA | Lab TA | Lab Marker |
| L1A (Mon 9:00-11:00): | Marjan | Bo | Catherine |
| L1B (Mon 14:00-16:00): | Michael | Tommy | Catherine |
| L1C (Thu 10:00-12:00): | Jonathan | Michael | Victor |
| L1E (Fri 12:00-14:00): | Oliver | Marjan | Oliver |
| L1F (Tues 15:00-17:00): | Tommy | Bo | Oliver |
| L1G (Tues 13:00-15:00): | Bo | Tommy | Peiyu |
| L1H (Tues 9:00-11:00) | Bo | Tommy | Peiyu |
Prerequisites
APSC 160 or equivalent. You are expected to know how to program in C at the level of functions and arrays before taking this course. If you need a refresher in C, then please: (a) re-read parts of the Etter textbook (the same textbook used in APSC 160), (b) read the "Essential C" document (see below), and (c) practice writing some short programs with Microsoft's Visual Studio 2012 C/C++ compiler on your own. There are lots of examples available.
Textbooks
Textbooks (You are permitted to bring them to the lab for reference, and to use them during your programming tests in the lab.)
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(Required)
Reema Thareja. Data Structures Using C. Oxford University Press, 2011.
You should be able to get this for $43.20 (new) in the UBC Bookstore (they are currently out of stock, but they should have it restocked in a few weeks), and perhaps cheaper elsewhere. This is the third time we've used it in this course; so, you're likely to find used copies, too. You can buy this book online (e.g., ChaptersIndigo.ca, Amazon.ca, or Amazon.com), at the UBC Bookstore, or at Discount Textbooks (just off-campus by the McDonald's at the Village, upstairs). Also copies of this book are on reserve for short-term loan at the CPSC Reading Room (i.e., the "library" located near the CPSC main office on the 2nd floor of ICCS). Also the Reading Room's hours of operation are found at URL https://www.cs.ubc.ca/sites/cs/files/pages/2010/openinghours.pdf -
(Required-but Free, Downloadable, and Short)
Stanford's tutorial notes for C programming.- Nick Parlante, "Essential C", Stanford University Tutorial Notes.
- Nick Parlante, "Pointers and Memory", Stanford University Tutorial Notes.
- Nick Parlante, "Linked List Basics", and "Linked List Problems" Stanford University Tutorial Notes.
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(Recommended, but Optional: Your APSC 160 Textbook)
Delores Etter. Engineering Problem Solving with C. 3rd or 4th edition, Pearson/Prentice-Hall Publishers, 2005 or 2012. -
Additional Reference Material (If You Want More Resources)
Any book on C programming that you find readable is probably good. The UBC Library and CPSC Reading Room have several. Chapters/Indigo stores probably have a bunch of C books that you can flip through at their stores before you buy. Buy one that you find "readable".- Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. The C Programming Language. (This is the programming standard for C. It's a good reference book, but not very friendly for introductory programming.)
- http://www.cplusplus.com/ (It has both C and C++ material together; C++ is a superset of C. It"s a pretty good site.)
- http://www2.its.strath.ac.uk/courses/c/ (another good Web site)
Programming Environment
We will use Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 Professional (i.e., for Visual C/C++) as the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) in the lab, and we recommend that you use it at home, too. It actually compiles both C and C++ code; so, if you see any references being made to Visual C++, don't worry - it's the same product. However, for this course, you will only write C code, and not C++ code (which most of you won't know anyway).
Engineering students can download a free copy of Microsoft's Visual Studio Professional using the ECE or CPSC department's DreamSpark academic licensing arrangement (formerly the MSDNAA agreement). Details are available in the Lab 1 document.
This course uses the automated "handin" facility to submit your code for marking. Details will be given to you in the lab specifications. The handin facility gives you an acknowledgement upon submitting your work; therefore, pay careful attention to it -to make sure that you've submitted your work correctly.
Evaluation
Your performance in the class will be based on a number of activities. Final grades will be calculated as follows:
- 3% for the clicker questions
- 4% for the online PeerWise
- 5% for the in-lab component, teamwork, and deliverables (1% each)
- 10% for the 5 in-lab programming tests (2% each)
- 15% for the take-home programming assignments (3% each)
- 28% for the midterm exam.
- 35% for the final exam.
- 1% bonus for active participation on Piazza
- 1% bonus for PeerWise
To pass the course, you must obtain at least a 50% overall course mark (as per the above formula) and you must pass the final exam. In keeping with Department policy, students who fail the final exam receive a course grade of min{45, x} where x is the overall course mark.
Clickers
Like APSC 160, we will be using iClickers for this course. Clicker marks will be by participation only, and we'll count your best 90% just in case you were sick, visited the dentist, attended a funeral, forgot your clicker, found out that your batteries died, missed the bus, slept in, had a bad day, etc. The purpose of iClickers is to help students engage/connect more with the lecture material, including programming concepts. Research in many schools throughout the world has shown that clickers are very effective tools for class engagement and learning.
PeerWise
We will be using PeerWise this semester. You will be generating your own multiple-choice questions and sharing them with one another. Our aim is to empower you to think about ways of evaluating understanding of a learning goal while having the opportunity to gauge your own understanding of it in the process. Use of PeerWise enables you to get immediate feedback on your work and allows you to compare yourself to your peers. In addition, by using crowdsourcing, we can create a pool of high-quality multiple-choice questions that can be used in the future offerings of the course.
Please follow the steps for registering your PeerWise account.
1. Access the Peerwise website here.
2. Click "Registration" under the login box and click "Start Registration" on the next page.
3. Follow the registration prompts (your PeerWise Identifer can be found on Connect as a 6 digit number).
A quick guide and overview of PeerWise can be found here: PeerWise Outline.
Deadlines in regards to PeerWise are posted on the course calendar. If there are any concerns or issues regarding the setup or use of PeerWise, please refer to Piazza or email Victor.
Examinations
If you cannot write an exam (e.g., due to illness), you must obtain suitable documentation (e.g., doctor's note) and inform the instructor ASAP-not after you've written the exam. With appropriate medical documentation, and at the discretion of the instructor, you will either write a different midterm at a future date determined by the instructor, or your final exam mark will be applied to your midterm mark.
The final exam will cover the whole course, and its time and date will be determined by the Registrar's office. If you are sick for the final exam, then you must get a doctor's note, and deliver it to the Faculty of Applied Science. This opens the door for me to give you a different exam at a future date to be determined by the Registrar's office.
Midterm Dates:
- Midterm 1
- Date: Wednesday, October 21
- Time: 08:00 - 08:50
- Location: Hebb - Room 100
- Midterm 2
- Date: Friday, November 13
- Time: 08:00 - 08:50
- Location: Hebb - Room 100
Piazza
The Piazza bulletin board is required reading. It will be used for important material that may not be mentioned in class. Problems with the CPSC 259 course contents (e.g., lecture, lab, textbook, assignments) can be posted on Piazza, but please check to make sure that your question hasn't already been asked or answered. Piazza is read by all students in our class, and the TAs and instructor; therefore, a lot of us can respond to your questions. Students are encouraged to ask questions, and to respond to other students' questions, as long as the questions don't ask for answers to homework. Selected individuals that actively respond to postings on Piazza, may receive a bonus mark of up to 1%.
Please do not send e-mail to the instructor or the TAs in order to get us to debug your code. Instead, please bring your questions to the lab, either during your scheduled lab time or during the extra office hours provided by the TAs during the week. please limit emails to the instructor and the TAs to items of a personal or confidential nature.
Electronic Information Sources
Most material that we will use in this course will be available at the following URLs:-
This course home page at www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs259/2014W1.
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The course bulletin hosted on Piazza at piazza.com/ubc.ca/winterterm12014/cpsc259.
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Quizzes and your grades are hosted on Connect at elearning.ubc.ca/connect/. To access Connect you need a Campus-Wide Login (CWL), Netinfo account or Student Number and PIN. To register for a CWL account, visit www.cwl.ubc.ca.
Course Policy on Plagiarism
Although you may discuss problem solving approaches to homework with other students, and get help from the TAs, you and your partner (as a team) must do your own work. Plagiarism occurs when you submit someone else's work as if it were your own. Examples of plagiarism include: copying some or all of another team's code; hiring a tutor to write some of the code for you; sending someone (other than your partner for that lab) your code via e-mail, text message, Skype, Facebook, Microsoft Messenger, etc., (even if it's just for "reference purposes"); and so on.
The penalty for plagiarism can be a suspension from the University for 4-12 months and a grade of zero in the course. So, please don't turn in someone else's work.
Dr. Tamara Munzner has also set up a few pages about academic conduct for one of her courses. Most of the rules in Dr. Munzner's course also apply to our course--ask Dr. Khosravi or a TA if you're not sure before you do something that might be plagiarism. Note that you will use pair programming in our labs, so working with a partner is of course acceptable providing it's with your actual lab partner for that specific lab. Use common sense. To prevent misunderstandings, remember to ask your TAs or instructor for any clarifications.
Acknowledgements
Slides and other course materials are based on previous materials from others, especially Dr. Ed Knorr.