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MA 591K Fall 03 Syllabus

Course Outline*

Lecture Topic(s) Programs Book(s), Notes
C Language
1. Aug 21 Organizational meeting; determine class time
2. Aug 26 First program first_ pgm. c
first_ pgm_ cgi. c
first_ pgm. html
first_ pgm_ cgi_ get. c
first_ pgm_ get. html
 DDC §2.1-3
3. Aug 28 Operators; flow of control
DDC §2.5-6; DDC §4; Semicolon before else
4. Sep 2 Functions; the C runtime library math.c, rand.c DDC §5.1-8
Wednesday, Sep 3, 17h00 Last day to add course; please use TRACS
5. Sep 4 Scope of variables, storage classes; separate compilation StorageClasses/ DDC §5.12
6. Sep 9 Arrays and pointers, args to main arrays.c, mainarg.c DDC §6.1-6.5, §6.10, §6.20-22
7. Sep 11 Recursion, debugging Recursion/ DDC §5.13-18
8. Sep 16 strings; scanf, printf, I/O; the preprocessor, macros scanf.c, types.c DDC §8, DDC §13
9. Sep 18 Typedef, structures, unions, header files; storage allocation, lists Lists/ DDC §10.1-5, §10.18, §12.1-4
10. Sep 23 Pointers to functions; OO programming in C ptrs2fncs. c, OO_pgm_in_C/ DDC §7.26
Tuesday, Sep 23, at midnight First C project due, counts 16.67%
Java Language
11. Sep 25 First Java program; Basic object design: members, constructors, cloning, destructors account.java, test_acc.java, Inherit/ DDJ §8
12. Sep 30 Derivation, inheritance, public, private Inherit/ continued DDJ §9
13. Oct 2 Abstract methods; collections, packages Stacks/, Lists12/ DDJ §9
14. Oct 7 Catch-up; exceptions; inner classes exception.java DDJ §14
Thurs-Fri, Oct 9-10 Columbus Day, no class
15. Oct 14 Abstract Window Toolkit, the Java 1.0 and 1.1 event models, applets; Panel and Button Nutshell/ ch6/ First Applet.*, Nutshell/ ch7/ DDJ §3
Wednesday, Oct 15, at 9am Second C project due, counts 16.67%
16. Oct 16 AWT continued: Frame, Canvas, Checkbox, CheckboxGroup, Label CheckboxTest. java
17. Oct 21 AWT continued: TextField, ScrollBar, Color; Java archive files Caviness/, Scroll Test _1 _1. java, Graphdraw/
18. Oct 23 Multiple threads; animation Threads/, BouncingCircle. java, BouncingCircle. html, SmoothCircle. java, SmoothCircle. html DDJ §15, Sun tutorial
19. Oct 28 Slack class covered by the 10 minutes' overtime during each class for times that I am away
C++ Language
20. Oct 30 First C++ program; basic object design: members, constructors, copy, destructors account. cpp, inherit. cpp DDC §16; My comparision of C++ and Java
21. Nov 4 Derivation, inheritance, public, private; polymorphism: overloading of functions and operators; stream I/O inherit. cpp continued DDC §18, DDC §19, §21
22. Nov 6 Pointers and references, const, static
DDC §15.8, §17.2, §17.7
Monday, Nov 10, at midnight Java project due, counts 33.33%
23. Nov 11 Templates and the STL Lists/ DDC §17.10, SGI's online manual
24. Nov 13 STL containers map.cpp, index.cpp
25. Nov 18 STL iterators

26. Nov 20 STL algorithms indir_ sort. cpp
27. Nov 25 Advanced topics: virtual member functions; code bloat and how to avoid it Stacks/ DDC §20
Thursday-Friday, Nov 27-28 Thanksgiving, no class
28. Dec 2 Namespaces and inner classes; exceptions; multiple inheritance exception.cpp; MultInher/ DDC §19.15
29. Dec 4 Wrappers/adaptors to existing libraries; traits prof3.h
N. Myers report on traits
Tue, Dec 16, at 17h00 C++ project (now standard-compliant) due, counts 33.33%
* This is a projected list and subject to amendment.

Instruction Personnel

For instructor, office hours, telephone numbers, email and physical address see the homepages of Erich Kaltofen.

Textbook and Online Notes

For students who do not already know C, I have ordered The syllabus above refers to chapters in this book, which also contains C++ material. The classical reference to the C programming language is and to the C++ programming language The Standard Template Library of C++ (not covered in Deitel/Deitel) has an online tutorial by SGI.

I am using

as the introduction/reference to Java. All examples have been downloaded. This book uses the new Swing GUI components, and has little information on the classical AWT classes. However, there is also an online tutorial by Sun Microsystems.

On-line information: All information on courses that I teach (except individual grades) is now accessible via html browsers, which includes this syllabus. My courses' directory is at

You can also find information on courses that I have taught in the past, and examinations that I have given.

Grading and General Information

There will be four programming assignments of approximately equal weight, constituting the final grade. Please submit your solutions in archived, compressed, and ASCII-encoded form according to these procedures.

If you need assistance in any way, please let me know (see also the University's policy).

Academic Standards

Collaboration on programs: I expect every student to be his/her own programmer. Therefore the only thing you can discuss with anyone is how you might go about solving a particular problem. You may use freely information that you retrieve from public (electronic) libraries or texts, but you must properly reference your source.

Late submissions: All programs must be submitted on time. The following penalties are given for (unexcused) late submissions:

Alleged cheating incidents: I will not decide any penalty myself, but refer all such cases to the proper judiciary procedures.

©2003 Erich Kaltofen.