getting started

hello

Welcome to the Spring 2021 Intro CS course.

Let's start with introductions.

After that - any questions about anything so far? I'll try to remember to pause to ask that again as we go. If I don't feel free to interrupt.

Recording - one student has already asked that I record our zoom sessions. Is that OK with everyone? I do want these meetings to involve all you, not just me as a talking head. So I'm only recording if you all agree to still participate and speak up.

this course website

We'll be using this site to organize everything about the course. I'll start by walking through what's here : my class outline notes, course resources, syllabus, assignments, ... the works.

All assignments - weekly and projects - as well as your submitted work will be through this website. If for some reason you're having problems accessing it or something isn't working, email me, Jim Mahoney, at jimmahoney@bennington.edu .

course topics

So what are we doing this term and why?

• This is a foundation CS (Computer Science) course ... and useful for many other disciplines as well.
• It covers the core ideas of programming including functions, variables, data structures, loops and conditionals, with lots of examples and practice
• We'll use the python programming language, which is :
  • popular & accessible,
  • flexible & general purpose,
  • runs easily on any operating system, with good docs & tools
  • and version 3 of the language, the most recent, is what we'll use this term.

What is "computing" anyway?

Well, it's a big topic - see wikipedia's computing article for an overview of what it encompasses.

One of the central themes is "managing complexity", including documentation (writing down what we're doing) and tests (making sure things work). We'll be working on both of those this term.

Some of the areas within overall "computing" heading include

• computer science - understanding what computers can do, in theory and practice
• software engineering - using people and money efficiently to write software to solve real-world problems
• information technology - managing people's data : libraries, employment records, medical, books, money,
• information systems - managing big business computing needs ("enterprise")

including roles like

• data scientist - massage big piles of numbers into a meaningful form
• web developer - online content in its various forms
• system administrator - keep the hardware working
• digital artist - electronic music or 3D modeling or graphics
• computer programmer - any of the above

All of these overlap but emphasize different skills and topics.

And these days lots of fields from photography to plumbing to dance to horseback riding use computers for various parts of their work - they're really powerful tools.

So the aim of this course is to give you some foundations in both theory and practice that can serve as a starting point for any further work in computing.

a sample python program

Our vehicle to get this foundation will mainly be the python programming language, though we'll also see other related ideas along the way.

Here's a bit of python code, just to show you the sort of thing we'll be doing.

• string art

We will of course see lots more examples of programs as we go along this semester.

what you should do to get going

• Check out the syllabus, resources, and links on the left of this page.
• The first assignment is posted and due this Thursday, which outlines what you should be doing this week. In particular, the assignment includes
  • readings from the textbook (chapter 1)
  • a unix command line tutorial (aka "scavenger hunt")
  • questions for me to learn a bit about you
  • explanations for how to get python programs running.

course meetings & getting help

We'll be meeting via zoom on Mondays & Thursdays, 10am until 11:30 or so.

My office hours are Wed 7-9pm (at least to start), and other times by appointment. Contact me on slack or via email.

Tutoring hours will be listed soon; the tutors are Quang, Stacy, and Suman.

Please do use the slack channel (#spr21-introcs on bennington-cs.slack.com) to ask questions and discuss the material.

We will be using the same zoom "virtual room" all semester; check out the links to the left after you log in (top right) to this site with your Bennington credentials.

You may work with others in the class on homework, just make sure that you say when you submit your work who you worked with and who did what. In other words, quote your sources. See the syllabus for more on this.

Drop me an email at jimmahoney@bennington.edu if in doubt.

Questions?