Zach Tomaszewski

• About me
  • background
  • current

Icebreaker (5 min)

• For at least two people next to you:
  • Learn their name
  • Find one non-obvious thing you have in common
    • Obvious: Both male, UH students, in ICS211, etc.
    • Non-obvious: Went to same high school, play Starcraft II, don't like spam, etc.

Will then form a public graph of connections found.

My Teaching Philosophy

• Learning vs Teaching scale
• Walking analogy (and your current exciting level)
• Factors: ability, watching others, experiment with techniques, get help, practice, keep at it.
• My job: staircase vs escalator
• Consider your motivation (reasons for being here)

Let's Start!

"Let me not think of my work only as a stepping stone to something else, and, if it is, let me become fascinated with the shape of the stone."

--Ze Frank, from invocation

ICS211: Course Content

• Data stuctures / Abstract Data Types
• Algorithms and complexity (big-O)
• Software engineering practices (esp. OOP)
• Programming skills (Java)

Grading

• 50% assignments/lab (up to 55% with EC)
• 50% lecture
  • lecture style (slides, backrow, new two-topic-break format)
  • 5% quizzes and discussion (in Laulima, open-book)
    • Probably after every class period. Will prepare you for exams: review and examples.
  • 45% exams (3 midterms, 1 final. Each 15%, drop lowest)
    • No make-up exams. Final is on Friday of exam week. May have an exam on Wed before Thanskgiving.
    • Need 70%+ to get B or better.
• Fairly standard letter grade assignment. No curve.
• Shooting for ~100 points a week.

Lab

• TA: Anthony Christe ("we")
• Will cover practical aspects of the course
  • Including stuff not covered in lecture
• Attendance is expected
  • May be required for parts of certain assignments
  • EC opportunities

Assignments

• Probably pretty frequent. Hopefully small, but getting larger over term. Try to front-weight term.
• Start early!
• Always due at 8am, usually on Thursday.
• "No collaboration" rules. (See Syllabus for more.)

Textbook

• Why we have this one.
• You should definitely have a book.
• (programmer resource-selecting skills)

Caveat: First-time Course

• Solid but unpolished.
• Some minor things may change as we go (syllabus, schedule, some activities, etc.)
• Not aware of all the common stumbling blocks yet.
• Keep me informed.
• If you need help, ask! (Me, TA, LAs...)

Questions now...?

Review Format

• Just a quick recap.
• Will be an online quiz to help you identify some knowledge gaps
  • but can't cover every concept in a quiz
• Good review sources: Java Tutorial and Appendix A of textbook.
• One thing to know it, another to be skilled at it.

Printing

• Difference between print and println
• You can print anything, including nothing (with println):

  int badgers = 6;
  System.out.print(3)
  System.out.println(badgers)
  System.out.print("honey")
  System.out.println();
  System.out.print("badgers")

Literals, Datatypes, and Variables

• literals: 3, 3.0, '3', "3"
• data types (primitives vs objects)
• variables
  • declaration
  • assignment
  • initialization
  • identifier (name)
• empty string ("") and difference between "", " ", ' ', (and '')
• escape characters: \n, \t, \\, \", \'

Operators (1/2)

• Arithmetic: +, -, *, /, %
• Concatanation: + (example: "3" + 3)
• Assignment: =
• Compound (shortcut) assignment: +=, -=, *=, /=, %=
• Increment and decrement: ++, -- (and difference between num++ and ++num)

Operators (2/2)

• Relational: ==, <, >, <=, >= (and when to use == vs. .equals(...))
• Logic: !, &&, ||
• Precedence rules (for all operators)

• Conditional (ternary) operator: ?:

  int num = //???
  String type = (num % 2 == 0) ? "even" : "odd";
  

• Others you may not know: unary +, -; bitwise: ~, &, |, ^; shift: <<, >>, >>>; instanceof)

Conditionals

• if (and its various permutations)
  • if
  • if-else
  • if-elseif
  • if-elseif-...-else
  • nested ifs
  • Always use curly braces! (but know the rules for leaving them off).
• switch
  • case, break, and default
  • fallthru (when you don't use a break for a given case)

Odds and Ends

• Terms: expression, statement, block
• Three kinds of comments: //, /* ... */, /** ... */

To do before next time...

• Visit course website:
  http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ztomasze/teaching/ics211/2012fa/
• Read what's there: syllabus, news, etc.
• Log into Laulima
• Take quiz 01A (open book, covers syllabus and Java review)
• Check out E01