Class Info

Home Class Info Links

Lectures Newsgroup Assignments

Class Information

• Staff
• Class schedule
• Prerequisites
• Textbook
• Software
• Newsgroup
• Syllabus
• The Code Critic and Grading
• Assignments
• Course polices
• Getting help

Teaching Staff

Instructor: Chris Riesbeck
Home page
Office hours: I'm very available. See my Yahoo calendar and email me
Teaching assistant: TBD

Class Schedule

MTWF 1:00pm - 2:00pm in Tech L221

Prerequisites

CS 111 or equivalent. You should already understand basic concepts, such as variables and variable scope, functions and function parameters, iteration, recursion, and simple data structures.

Textbook

The textbook is C++ How to Program, 6th edition, by Deitel and Deitel.

Software

We will use g++ (GNU C++) as the C++ compiler for this course is G. It is available on Linux and MacOS X, and easily installed using Cygwin on Windows.

To support test-driven development (TDD), we'll use the CppUnit framework. You can get it easily with Cygwin on Windows and MacPorts on MacOS X.

We will also use Makefiles to manage project code.

We recommend but do not require Code::Blocks for Windows users and XCode for MacOS X users as development environments.

Output from other C++ compilers, such as Microsoft Visual Express, will not be accepted, because we can't easily and automatically compile and test such code.

Newsgroup

We will use the EECS 211 newsgroup, hosted by the CS news server. Newsgroups work much much better than the browser-based discussion forums in Blackboard. There are newsgroup servers around the world, with tens of thousands of newsgroups available. You can search an archive of many of them at Google Groups.

Course Policies

Cheating

You must never copy solutions from any source or give your homework to another student.

Cheating will result in a failing grade for the course. University policy requires that instances of cheating be reported to the Dean.

However, you are allowed and encouraged to discuss the exercises. This means asking for suggestions when you are stuck and discussing examples that are similar but not part of the exercise. You must never share code or solutions to the assigned problems.

Getting help and general advice

Participate in class. Ask lots of questions. The point of the class sessions is to interact, not to sit and listen to lectures.

Post to the newsgroup. Posting your questions there will usually get you an answer much faster than if you email them to us, or wait until class/office hours.

Email or visit the instructor. When emailing, always put "EECS 211: ..." in the Subject line, followed by a short but clear topic. Otherwise, your email may get lost in the spam.

Check the course web pages for updates.

Study early and start assignments early. The last minute is the worst time to need help.

Comments? Send mail to c-riesbeck@northwestern.edu.