San Jose State University

CS 46A - Introduction to Programming

Fall 2012

Meeting times and location, contact information, office hours, the exam schedule, and class assignments, are published in the Desire2Learn site.

Description

Basic skills and concepts of computer programming in an object-oriented approach using Java. Classes, methods and argument passing, control structures, iteration. Basic graphical user interface programming. Problem solving, class discovery and stepwise refinement. Programming and documentation style. Weekly hands-on activity.

For the official catalog description, please visit http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/catalog/departments/CS-courses.html.

Prerequisites

Eligibility for Math 30 or Math 30P or instructor consent.

Textbook

Cay S. Horstmann, Java Concepts 6th Edition. ISBN 978-0-470-50947-0. You can also use Big Java 4th Edition ISBN 978-0-470-50948-7. For the e-book, go here.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

Analyze and explain the behavior of programs involving the fundamental program constructs
Write short programs that use the fundamental program constructs including standard conditional and iterative control structures
Identify and correct syntax and logic errors in short programs
Choose arrays or array lists for a given problem and write short programs that use arrays or array lists
Design and implement a class based on attributes and behaviors of objects
Construct objects using a class and activate methods on them
Write javadoc comments for classes and methods
Write graphicss program that draws simple shapes
Use interfaces and inheritance to describe common behavior of classes and write programs that use that common behavior
Use an integrated development environment and a debugger

Course Requirements

Exams: Two in-class exams (15% per exam) and a final exam (25%). Exams cannot be made up, except for reasons of illness, as certified by a doctor, or documentable extreme emergency. Makeup exams may be oral.
Programming Assignments: Two assignments per week (30%). Schedule your time well to protect yourself against unexpected problems. I suggest you ignore the official deadlines and complete the assignments 48 hours earlier. Late work is not accepted, and there is no extra credit or makeup work.
Labs: You must enroll for a lab section and attend all labs. You will fail the course if you don't pass the lab section. Provided you get a passing grade in the labs, it counts as 5% of your total grade.
Quizzes: You will be required to read sections of the textbook before each class, and to take a quiz that tests the reading material before each class. Your quiz score counts as 5% of your total grade.
Participation: You are expected to actively participate in the course. You will be graded on particpation in class and in online discussions. Your participation score counts as 5% of your total grade.
Laptops: You will be required to bring a wireless laptop to all (!) classes and exams.
Time Spent: As per Policy Recommendation S12-3, success in this course is based on the expectation that students will spend, for each unit of credit, a minimum of forty-five hours over the length of the course for instruction or preparation/studying or course related activities.
This is a 4-unit/15-week class, so you should spend 180 hours per semester or 12 hours per week on this class: 2.5 hours per week in the lecture, 2.5 hours per week in the lab, and 7 hours per week with preparation and homework assignments.

Grading Policy

You will receive a letter grade for each of the exams, the finals, the total homework performance, and the total participation in labs/discussions/quizzes. Letter grades are obtained by adding and curving the numeric scores. When determining a curve, the cutoffs are guided by the university definitions for letter grades:

A+, A, A- excellent
B+, B, B- above average
C+, C, C- average
D+, D, D- below average
F failure

Letter grades are converted into number grades, as specified here, except that an A+ is counted as 4.3, and weighted with the percentages given in the Course Requirements section. The weighted average is rounded towards the nearest letter grade, which is your class grade.

Note that this class is graded as an A/B/C/NC class. You will receive a NC in your transcript if your earned grade is a C-, D+, D, D-, or F.

Miscellaneous Policies

Add Policy: Add requests may be randomly chosen if there are more students than available space. You must use your add code within 24 hours, or the add code will be reassigned to someone else.

Individual Work: All homework and exams must be your own individual work. It is ok to have general discussions about homework assignments, or read other material for inspiration. You may never copy anything from anyone without attribution, with one exception—you may copy without attribution from the textbook. For homeworks and exams, you may not copy anything from any other student at all, and you may not collaboratively produce results in pairs or teams.

Students who plagiarize will be reported to the office of student conduct. Students who permit their work to be copied will also be reported.

Publicly Viewable Work: Your class work (including homework, exam, and project work) may be viewable by other students of this course. Your grades will not be viewable by others.

Copyright of Materials: All materials created by the instructor for this course, including lectures, handouts, homeworks, exams, solutions, projects, and so on, are copyrighted property of the instructor. You may transscribe or record lectures or copy course materials for the use of yourself and other students registered in this course. You may not sell or give transscriptions or recordings of lectures or copies of course materials to others without the prior written consent of the instructor.