CMPS 12A 
Introduction to Programming 
Spring 1999 
 
Time and Place: MWF   11:00 \226 12:10    Classroom 1 
Outline: This is an introductory programming course for computer science 
and engineering majors. We will learn programming and documentation 
skills, algorithmic problem solving, and programming methodologies. 
Topics include procedures and functions, conditional and loop control 
structures, static and dynamic memory manipulations, and text 
processing. Some prior programming experience is recommended but not 
required. Prior experience with Athena/Unix is also helpful. 
 
Instructor: Patrick Tantalo 
Office: Applied Sciences 153A 
Phone: 459-4913 
Email: ptantalo@cse.ucsc.edu 
Office Hours: TBA 
 
Teaching Assistant: 
Allison Coates 
allison@cse.ucsc.edu 
Office hours to be announced. 
 
Text: Problem Solving and Program Design in C, 3rd Edition. Hanley and 
Koffman. Addison Wesley, 1998. We will cover chapters 1-9, 11,12 of the 
text, with perhaps a few optional sections omitted.  By all means, read 
this book. 
 
Class Webpage: http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/classes/cmps012a/. 
 
Class News Group: ucsc.class.cmps012a 
 
Assignments and Grading: 
 
Homework: Weekly programming assignments, submitted electronically, will 
count for 30% of your grade. In addition, I will assign problems from 
the book which will not be graded. 
 
Quizzes: Bi-weekly quizzes (every other Friday) on recently covered 
material, will count for 35% of your grade. 
 
Final Exam: The final exam, to be held Friday, June 11 from 12:00 to 
3:00 pm, will count for 35%.  Please make arrangements now to be 
available at the appropriate time. 
 
Grading: The grading distribution will be no more stringent than the 
following: 
 A 90%-100% 
 B 80%-89% 
 C 70%-79% 
 D 60%-69% 
 F 0%  -59% 
The letter grade boundaries may be lowered slightly at my discretion to 
eliminate borderline cases. 
 
Academic Honesty: The graded programming assignments are to be done 
individually, not in groups. You should treat them as take home exams. 
You may freely give and receive help with the computer facilities, 
editors, UNIX, debugging techniques, the meaning and proper use of C 
constructs, syntax, etc..  It is also perfectly permissible to discuss 
general approaches and algorithms with your classmates. However, copying 
any part of another person\222s program, or allowing your program to be 
copied is not permitted.  An automatic program will be in use to detect 
copying.  Any confirmed academic dishonesty including but not limited to 
copying programs or cheating on exams, will constitute a failure on that 
assignment, and will result in a no-pass or failing grade in the class. 
 
How to submit homework electronically: 
It is a requirement of this course that all your programming assignments 
compile, and run correctly on the CATS-Athena machines.  If you do not 
already have a CATS account, register for one as soon as possible.  This 
can be done from any computer lab on campus.  Simply log on as 
\223register\224, when prompted for a password respond \223athena\224, then fol\
low 
the instructions presented.  Further instructions are available at the 
CATS webpage:  http://www2.ucsc.edu/cats/sc/help/intro,  or you can go 
to the CATS offices in the communications building. 
 
Use the submit command to electronically submit a homework file from 
your CATS account. You must give submit the following information (order 
is relevant): 
 
1. Which class are you submitting to (always cmps012a). 
2. Which assignment you're submitting for (hw1, hw2, hw3, etc.). 
3. Names of the files you're submitting. 
 
For example, if for homework 5 you submit a program called program.c and 
a data file called file.dat, you should type at the Unix prompt: 
 
submit   cmps012a   hw5   programt.c   file.dat 
 
If you submit multiple copies of a file (with the same file name), only 
the most recent version remains.  I recommend that each time you submit 
homework, you verify that it was properly accepted by using the peek 
command.  At the Unix prompt type: 
peek   cmps012a   hw5