CSci 1301: Problem Solving and Algorithm Development -- Resources

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The textbooks and other helpful resources

• The complete text of the textbook

In-class examples

• Aug. 28: an image used in the first racket example: , The first Racket example.
• Sept 4, 9: Writing Racket expressions and functions;
• Sept 9: The rocket example in Prologue
• Sept 16: A simple animation
• Sept. 18: helper functions (see solutions), last year's cartoons.
• Sept 21: an example of working with randomness, box-string.rkt
• Sept 25: finished box string example, Introduction to intervals, enumerations, and structures, Finished intervals, enumerations, structures example.
• Sept 30: examples of Racket worlds: binary world (alternating zeros and ones), a dot controlled by up and down arrow keys; the same example with additions we made in class..
• Oct. 2: Handling mouse clicks
• Oct. 5: modified binary world to check that world state is correct
• Oct 13. Introduction to lists and recursion, solutions for list exercises
• Oct 21. List exercises, solutions for the exercises.
• Oct 23: Making new lists recursively, solutions for making lists. Lists as world states, progress on the world state exercise (note that it has extra credit, due Monday before the class)
• Oct 26-28: Completed list world state example
• Oct 30: examples of recursion on numbers, finding the smallest element in a list, comparing two lists, sorting. Solutions: recursion on numbers, finding the smallest element in a list, comparing two lists, sorting
• Nov 4: Solution for place-between.
• Nov 6: Introduction to functional abstraction, Solutions for the abstraction examples..
• Nov 9: more examples of designing abstract functions.
• Nov 11: Progress on solutions for abstract functions, Finished solutions for abstract functions. Using predefined functions
• Nov 12: Review for the second midterm
• Nov 20: Solutions for predefined functions
• Nov 23: Local variables, Self-referential structures and Solutions.
• Dec 2: Generative recursion, Overview of tail recursion. Solutions for generative recursion
• Posted Dec 7: Review for the final, for review Dec 11

DrRacket resources

• To download DrRacket: http://racket-lang.org/ (go to Download Racket). Run the installation script. To start DrRacket, double-click on DrRacket (not Racket!) icon in program menu. Set the language to "Beginning Student" in the Language menu.
• Documentation for check-expect and other testing functions.
• Definition of Beginner Student Language (BSL), including all functions available at this level.
• Functions available in image.rkt teachpack.
• All functions avaliable in universe.rkt teachpack.

Previous year's work

• Cartoons

Various links

• ENIAC is considered the first electronic general-purpose computer (1946).
• History of computing hardware
• von Neumann architecture
• First common high-level programming languages, late 1950s: Fortran, Lisp, COBOL.
• Moore's law
• Herb Sutter "The Free Lunch Is Over: A Fundamental Turn Toward Concurrency in Software" - a 2005 article that points out a slowdown in exponential development of hardware and discusses its implications (optional material).
• Clojure programming language