Introductory Notes on CS110

The required book for this course is called A C++ Primer for engineers: An object-oriented approach. However, my focus will be on the logic involved in problem solving in the C++ language. As engineering students (and thus not computer science students), it will be somewhat difficult at first to problem solve efficiently. You have two strikes against you: your problem solving skills at this point are not as detail- oriented as programming requires. The second strike is that, even if you are a logical thinker, you must learn to communicate in a language (C++) that is foreign to you. Therefore, I will try to give you the language tools that are requisite for developing your logic skills. The one way to enhance your logic skills is to actually sit down and code the programs. In this class it is arduous to read the book and retain 100% of the material. Just as most engineering courses you need to apply the knowledge to gain complete understanding. Therefore, succeeding in this course depends upon you the student. I am willing to help in this journey, however, it is you who must feel the inevitable frustration and the eventual feeling of accomplishment when you complete a program. You should think of the book, online lecture notes, and myself as resources. It is your option to purchase the book, however, it is my experience that the more resources available to you the better off you are in programming.

Some specific syllabus and text notes

Any references to Object-Oriented (OO) programming in the text will not be
taught nor tested.  OO programming is out of scope of this course.

Any references to pointers will not be taught nor tested.

Some items taught in class will not be found in the book, although there will
be online notes that will supplement the in class presentation.

Chris Alvin
Last modified: Tue Sep 5 21:34:29 CDT 2000