Students with reasonable adjustments

Students with reasonable adjustment approvals will sit practical exams in relevant weeks on Friday 18:00.

Practical Exam 2

For practical exam 2, the best (out of 2 attempts) mark counts towards the final grade.

Late Submission

No extensions will be granted without an approved application for Special Consideration. There will be a deduction of 20% of the total available marks made from the total awarded mark for each 24 hour period or part thereof that the submission is late. For example, 25 hours late in submission for an assignment worth 10 marks – 40% penalty or 4 marks deducted from the total.  No submission will be accepted after solutions have been posted.

CLASSES

Each week you should attend

• two hours of lectures, and,
• two hour practicals,

Additionally, a two-hour workshop is held that serves as consultation hours.

For details of days, times and rooms consult the timetables webpage.

Note that Lectures and Workshops commence in week 1.

You should have selected a workshop during enrolment. You should attend the workshop you are enrolled in. If you do not have a class, or if you wish to change one, you should see the enrolment operators in the 14 Sir Christopher Ondaatje avenue courtyard during the first two weeks of the semester. Thereafter you should go to the Science and Engineering Student Services Centre.

Please note that you are required to submit work regularly. You will get the help that you need by attending your workshop. Failure to submit work may result in you failing the unit (see the precise requirements in the "Grading Standards" section) or being excluded from the final examination.

REQUIRED AND RECOMMENDED TEXTS AND/OR MATERIALS

Textbook

The first book in the following list, namely Starting out with Java, is the recommended text book. The other books listed are helpful references.

• T. Gaddis, Starting out with Java: From control structures through objects (Pearson), Global edition (6th). ISBN 9781292110653
• W. Savitch, Absolute Java (Pearson) 5th edition. ISBN 9780132830317
• B. Eckel, Thinking in Java (electronic book, 3rd edition available within iLearn is fine and is free but does not cover data structures)
• A. Drozdek, Data Structures and Algorithms in Java (Cengage) 2nd edition. ISBN 9780534492526

TECHNOLOGY USED AND REQUIRED

Audio Lecture

Digital recordings of lectures are available from within iLearn via Active Learning Platform.

Technology

• Java SE - download Java SE 9 (8 is also fine) to be compatible with the labs.
• Eclipse and Visual Studio Code - IDEs used.
• Learning Management System iLearn
• http://codingbat.com/ for programming exercises.

Discussion Boards

The unit makes use of forums hosted within iLearn. Please post questions there, they are monitored by the unit staff.

Note that three important themes will pervade the entire unit:

1. Problem solving. A crucial skill for all of the weekly topics will be to write appropriate code to meet a given problem specification. This theme relates to the first two learning outcomes for this unit.
2. Software development. Use of the JUnit testing framework is an important development practice which will be taught from the beginning, and used throughout the unit. This theme relates to the third learning outcome of this unit.
3. Comparing different solution methods. Very often different algorithms are available for the same problem. Another important skill to develop throughout this unit is the ability to compare different algorithms in terms of efficiency and other criteria. This theme relates to the fourth learning outcome of this unit.

Tentative teaching schedule, subject to change:

1. week 12 topic changed from "low level programming" to "computer organization".
2. two attempts offered for the hurdle Practical Exam 2 to all students.