Calendar - Subject to change!

References

Python.org's Python Tutorial
python.org
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist <--- this is the main textbook!
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist @ Open Book Project (new version currently being written - not all chapters are there!)
How to Think Like a Computer Scientist @ Green Tree Press
Dive into Python book
List of Python Modules (take a peek at the math module)
keywords vs. identifiers
Software:
- python/IDLE for windows
- python/IDLE for Mac python/IDLE for Macs.
CoC Tutoring

Week 1: January 7-11

Course Syllabus
Great article on O'Reilly's website
Excellent Usenix article
Read chapter 1 - How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (thinkCSpy)
Playing around in the interpretive "shell"
Script to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius
Script to calculate hypotenuse
Better script to calculate hypotenuse
Notes about print formatting
Script to calculate area of circle
Work on Lab 1 (posted under "labs". See link on navigation bar above.) Contact TAs or Monica immediately with any issues.
Read chapter 2 (How to think like a computer scientist)
List of Python Modules (take a peek at the math module)
keywords vs. identifiers
Notes about variables, operators, etc

Week 2: January 14-18

more notes: printing, commenting, operator precedence, quoting, etc
day 4 python shell
a script for converting to radians
function radian written two ways
...
See section 11.2 (although this about writing to files, it still has good examples of the string formatting.) for some more print formatting examples
script to print an E e.py
Chapter 3 (thinkCSpy)
celsius_module.py - celsius converter written as a function
Chapter 4 (thinkCSpy)
tickets.py
ticketsBetter.py
week2-day3.txt - to and from binary (base 2 numbers)

Week 3: January 21-25

Monday Holiday: Martin Luther King Day!
operators.txt
Read chapters 4 & 5 (How to think like a computer scientist)
factorial2008.py using mathematical recursion! and printing stars recursively

Week 4: January 28-February 1

A recursive game of High Low

Exam 1 practice

Exam 1 topics
Exam 1 Friday!

Week 5: February 4-8

craps.py using random and recursion!
How to make a menu driven list of choices for the user recursively
notes-ch5.txt (some reasons for writing functions)
Using try/except to prevent problems

Week 6: February 11-15

While loop - read chapter 6
while2008.py (cookie intro)
while.txt
while.py - using a while loop to repeat (triangle, etc)
factorialWhile.py
How can we decide if a word is a palindrome? (Um, first, what is a palindrome?) (two palindrome algorithms and also a reverse function - working with Strings)
How can we reverse some text?
- Easiest way
- Recursive way
- With a while loop? 1) using the indices or 2) slicing
whilePrompting.py program that loops on a menu
Read chapter 7 - Intro to Strings
notes-ch7.txt
String class
reverseIt.py - String indexing, slicing, reversing
Strings code notes
...

Week 7: February 18-22

Incremental development and planning what you will code: designing an algorithm
Our rough scrambled word algorithm and then the resultant scrambled word game.
Chapter 9 - sequences, range, for loops
for loop
arrays2.py - average a list
Monte Carlo Pi Approx. with for loop
handy chart of some string (or any *sequence*) operations
handy chart of sequence/array operations (will not work on strings!)
range function to generate a sequence
the for loop is very handy to iterate through a sequence (list) of things.
- rarely it will be through a literal sequence of things like ["apple", "orange", "banana"]
- often it could be through a list of numbers generated by the range function

Week 8: February 25-29

Exam 2 in class Friday!!
In class quiz over for loops and range and answers
averaging numbers in a sequence
Exam 2 covers chapters 1-8 of the old version on the online book and chapters 1-9 (skipping 8) of the new version of the online book.
old exam2
another old exam2
Some topics (this list is NOT comprehensive):

recursion
very simple try except code
while loops - like looping on a menu
range
for loops - looping through a sequence created by range, or through a sequence of data.
simple sequence processing: finding the average of the numbers, finding the smallest number, counting the numbers, summing the numbers
String manipulation (see week 6) and methods in String class
know how to reverse a word, how to test for a palindrome, how to write your own len function, etc

Week 9: March 3-7

converting a list of Fahrenheit temps to a list of Celsius temps
index of minimum
more index of minimum
plain minimum
find, findAll, binary search, and help making a test array
binary search
binary search runs
for loop could even go through a sequence which has a list of your files and folders! (os module and listdir in action!)
listdir function from os module
join, isfile, isdir functions from os.path
listdir.py
lookupTable.py

Week 10: March 10-14

What if someone does type a bad path? Check try/except
Writing to a file
readFile.py
words.txt

Week 11: March 17-21

Holiday: Spring Break

Week 12: March 24-28

Generating HTML and writing to a file
readData2D.py - didn't talk about this one in class
readTimeFromURL.py
yahooTemperature.py
Searching and sorting
- searching
- selection sort
working with 2-d arrays - did not talk about this one in class.

Week 13: March 31-April 4

Exam 3 in class Friday!!
selection sort with better abstraction
bubble sort
quick sort
Exam 3 practice problems - UPDATED for Spring 2008! (and yes, some of the numbers are skipped.)
Exam 3 practice solutions (some of them)
Exam 3 Friday

Week 14: April 7 - April 11

Week 15: April 14-April 18

Week 16: April 21-25

Object oriented programming (but chap 14 is where it gets good)
Dog.py
OOCard.py
whoGoes.py
Dice.py

Week 17: April 28-May 2