CS 368: Learning a New Language

"C++ for Java Programmers"

Last updated by Karen on Nov 4, 2009

Instructor:

• Karen Miller
• Lecture: 12:05 - 12:55pm W in 1325 CS
• Office: 4283 CS
• Office Hours: Mondays and Fridays 11am-noon, and by appointment. Please send e-mail to make an appointment.
  • No office hour on Friday, October 30.
  • No office hours on Friday Nov 6. Your teacher has flu-like symptoms.
• e-mail: smoler@cs.wisc.edu
• Office Phone: (608) 263-1724

Teaching Assistant:

• Name: Maheswaran Venkatachalam (Mahesh)
• Office: 1302 CS
• Office Hours: TuTh 9-10am
• e-mail: kvmakes@cs.wisc.edu
• Office Phone: 262-6600

Textbook information

There is no required textbook for this class during the Fall 2009 semester.

However, if you feel you need a structured textbook to help you learn the material then one of the following may be helpful to you. Karen feels that both lack sufficent quality and quantity of examples. Please note that we will not follow the ordering or presentation of either of these text books.

1. C++ for Java Programmers
   by Mark Allen Weiss
   published by Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004
2. C++ for Java Programmers
   by Timothy Budd
   published by Addison Wesley Longman, 1999

You will need a reference for C++. Use a book that you already own, or ask your peers which one they like. Karen's current favorite is the fourth edition of C++ Primer Plus by Stephen Prata. Published by Sams Publishing, 2002.

Assignments

• Assignment 1, due Wed Sept 16 before class
• Assignment 2, due Wed Sept 23 before class
• Assignment 3, due Wed Oct 14 before class
• Program 4, due Wednesday October 28
• Assignment 5, due Wed Nov 4 before class
• Program 6, due Wednesday November 18

Assignments are intended to focus your learning on specific topics. For this semester, a new set of assignments is being developed, hopefully better representing an amount of work appropriate for a 1-credit class than in previous semesters.

You may work with a partner on each assignment, provided that partner is currently enrolled in the course. The pairings may be different for different assignments. Make sure that it is clear if you are working with a partner, by placing both students' names on the turned in assignment.

Assignments are due as stated on the assignment. Exceptions to due dates will be considered, if extraordinary circumstances occur and the student has discussed the situation with the instructor before the assignment's due date.

Written homeworks will be checked for completeness. Programs will be scored by the TA. Your code will be compiled and executed to determine if it works. Note that it is impossible for the TA to run test code that does not compile; therefore, it is far better to turn in partially completed code that compiles (and runs) than to turn in code that does not compile.

Your programs are expected to be able to be compiled and executed on the department's instructional Unix machines. It is expected that your programs compile on these machines without warnings or errors when using g++.

Grading

Students meeting all 3 of these requirements will receive 1 credit (a grade of CR) for the course.

1. Attendance at at least 10 of the 14 lectures. Sign the attendance sheet at each class.
2. Completion of all homework assignments. All questions must be attempted, and the assignment must be turned in on time.
3. Scores of at least 70% on all programming assignments.

(Possibly) Helpful Links

C++ Programming

• Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ page
• Tutorial from cplusplus.com (nice diagrams!)
• An aspect of C++ programming that we don't have time for:
  RAII (Resource Acquisition Is Initialization). This is a good topic to understand, as it has implications for constructors and destructors.
  The Wikipedia article on RAII is also quite good.
• on inheritance: CoderSource.net Tutorial introduction (super short, but gets the idea across)
• on inheritance: by Robert L. Pitts at Boston University (really nice, if you ignore the little html error that displays the second part all in red)
• I/O
  list of functions for the string class
  description of the iostream class and hierarchy
  lots of good string examples
• STL (Standard Template Library)
  a very nice set of documents from SGI; start with the introduction
  a modest STL tutorial by Jak Kirman

Introduction to Using Tools

• From Professor Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, (fall 2009 link), a very nice tutorial introduction to tools used in our programmming environment, such as compilation, debugging, and Makefiles.

Make

• Univ. of Minnesota math department guide to make
• Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) guide to make

Debuggers

• Maryland quick overview of GDB
• RedHat's comprehensive GDB guide

Purify

• quick guide, written by Professor Susan Horwitz
• Karen's small example

Schedule

It may make for less or easier note-taking, if you print the lecture slides posted, and bring them to class.

Weeks	Topics	Assmt Due Dates	Handouts and Lecture Notes
1: 9/2	course introduction, programming language history, a first C++ program		lecture slides
2: 9/9	basic types, arrays, enumerations, and structures		lecture slides, code example
3: 9/16	pointer basics and pointer/array interactions	Assmt 1 due (on arrays and structures)	lecture slides
4: 9/23	memory model, dynamic allocation of memory, and an introduction to memory management	Assmt 2 due (pointer manipulation)	lecture slides
5: 9/30	the const modifier and its interaction with pointers, function basics, including call by value and call by reference parameters		lecture slides
6: 10/7	finally: classes and objects! .h and .cpp files, introduction to constructors, destructors, and the copy constructor		lecture slides, and please bring a printout of: IntList.cpp, IntList.h, testIntList.cpp, Makefile
7: 10/14	Let's build a queue.	Assmt 3 due (on C++ memory model and classes)	the queue
8: 10/21	an introduction to overloaded operators, especially the overloaded assignment operator		lecture slides on operator overloading
9: 10/28	multi-file compilation, and the Unix utilities: make, purify, and a little on debuggers	Assmt 4 due (queue program)	lecture slides
10: 11/4	operator overloading, friends	Assmt 5 due (Makefile)	lecture slides, and please print out and bring a copy of Polynomial.cpp, Polynomial.h, and testPolynomial.cpp. Here is also a Makefile.
11: 11/11	more on operator overloading and type conversions		extra lecture slides
12: 11/18	on I/O and the string class	Assmt 6 due (adding memory management to the queue program)	I/O lecture slides
13: 11/25	No class, THANKSGIVING
14: 12/2	templates		templates lecture slides
15: 12/9	the STL	Assmt 7 due (on I/O and strings)	STL lecture slides
	What we wish we had time for: inheritance		inheritance lecture slides,