Foundations of Computing -- Program Description

Jon Jacky

This program description goes into students' transcripts.

The official description appears first. It covers the entire year. The provisional descriptions that were used in Fall and Winter quarters follow.

Last revised June 15, 2001. Use your browser's Reload or Refresh button to get the latest version.

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Foundations of Computing is a three-quarter survey for students beginning a computer science specialization, that covers many topics in a meaningful but non-comprehensive way. The learning objectives are: to understand the basic concepts and vocabulary of programming languages, operating systems, and networks; to write, test, and document small programs in several contrasting programming languages: Scheme (Fall), bash, sed and awk (Winter) and Java (Spring); to use the Unix file system, shell commands, telnet, and a text editor; to read and understand literature on the technology, history, management, and social aspects of computing and to assess it in short writing assignments and seminars. Students were evaluated on their performance on short answer quizzes, on the quality and originality of their programming projects, on their written reports on assigned readings, on their prepared oral seminar presentations, and on attendance, timeliness and other work habits.

Course Equivalencies (in quarter hours). Total: 24

Fall:
6 - Introduction to Scheme programming
2 - Seminar on programming languages

Winter:
3 - Introduction to Unix
3 - Introduction to sed and awk programming
2 - Seminar on operating systems

Spring:
2 - Introduction to TCP/IP networking
4 - Introduction to Java programming
2 - Seminar on computer networks and networked applications


Foundation of Computing, Fall Quarter, has four primary learning objectives: to write, test and document small programs in the Scheme language, to understand and use some basic concepts and vocabulary of computer programming, to read and understand computer science literature and assess it in short writing assignments and seminars, and to make oral presentations on technical topics.

Course Equivalencies:

6 - Introduction to Scheme programming
2 - Seminar on programming languages


Foundation of Computing, Winter Quarter, has four primary learning objectives: to use the Unix file system, shell commands, telnet, and a text editor; to write small programs for processing text files using the bash, sed, and awk programming languages; to read and understand computer science literature and assess it in short writing assignments and seminars; to make oral presentations on technical topics.

Course Equivalencies:

3 - Introduction to Unix
3 - Introduction to sed and awk programming
2 - Seminar on operating systems


Jon Jacky, jackyj@evergreen.edu