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Home Page -- OOP at OSU
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OSU CS 582, Winter 2004
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Object-Oriented Analysis and Programming
Professor Timothy A. Budd
http://classes.engr.oregonstate.edu/eecs/winter2004/cs582/
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This is the Home Page for the Course Object Oriented Analysis and
Programming, originating from the
School of Electrical Enginnering
and Computer Science (or SEECS)
at Oregon State
University in Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
Winter Term, January 5 to March 12, 2001, MWF Bat 250, 9-10AM.
Welcome to the Oregon State University course
in Object-Oriented Programming.
In the past this course was offered as both a lecture
course and as a distance education course. However, it has been decided to
discontinue the distance education courses, and so the course is offered
now only in the lecture format.
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The catalog description for this course reads as follows:
``An examination of the ideas of Object-Oriented
design and Object-Oriented software construction. The lectures present the
concepts of object-oriented analysis and programming in a language independent
fashion, illustrated with specific examples from a variety of programming
languages. Students are expected to complete and report on a nontrivial
project developed in an object-oriented language of their choice.''
As indicated in the description, the course is intended
to be a broad introduction to the field of object oriented analysis and programming.
It is not a course in any particular programming language, although students
are expected to have the ability to learn at least one language on their
own during the period of the course.
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The course is open to any student in the graduate
program in computer science at Oregon State University. Undergraduates and
students in other departments can take the course with the permission of
the instructor. Although the course is listed as a graduate level course (for
historical reasons), the material should be accessible to any upper division
undergraduate with a background in computer science.
External students are expected to have at least two
years programming experience in a conventional programming language, such
as C or Pascal. No previous programming experience in Object Oriented languages
is assumed.
Students should expect to spend about ten to fifteen
hours per week on course material. This includes reading the text, answering
the study questions, doing exercises, the midterm exam, and programming the
final project.
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A superficial examination of the present material might
lead one to believe that the on-line version of this course is nothing more
than a self-study course, where the student simply sits and reads the textbook.
To understand the difference, we must investigate a little more deeply
the nature of a typical lecture course.
The lecture system of instruction has existed for more than
700 years. In this period many reforms in educational technique have come
and gone, and yet the lecture has survived. Although as an instructional
technique lectures are often denigrated, one must regard any idea with such
longevity as having a proven success record. Because of this, it is important
to ask what features found in the method of instructions via lectures represent
the key to this success. This is particularly important when one is seeking
to replace the technique with another form of instruction.
We can perhaps explore this issue by asking a very simple
question. It is usually the case that the information content of a typical
university course is entirely contained within the textbook for that course.
What then makes taking a course different from reading the textbook for
that course?
The answer, I think, is three-fold. The first part is pacing -- a course is spread out over
several weeks, while a book is typically read in only a few sittings. A
textbook that is quickly read is quickly forgotten. A course forces the student
to address the material in smaller units. This concentration of effort on
small units of information provides the student with greater time to assimilate
course material.
Any effort to replace lectures with an on-line equivalent
must include some mechanism for, ironically, slowing the student down. A
course is more than simply an on-line textbook. There must be other mechanisms
(exercises, illustrations, movies, projects) included to reinforce and duplicate
the acquisition of knowledge from the textbook.
A second part is redundancy, or multiple modes of delivery.
A student taking a course has the opportunity to both hear the lecture
and read the textbook. Information may be learned to a greater
or lesser extent from both, but ultimately both reinforce each other, and
the combination is better than either by themselves. In an on-line and
distant course we admittedly lose some of this advantage. The hope is
that by a combination of forcing the students to take careful notes (by
tightly integrating the study questions with the text) as well as participating
in on-line discussions, we can regain some of what we have lost in this regard.
But the third part is, I think, perhaps the most important.
When people gather together in a group, there is a common bond formed
simply due to the sense of shared purpose. Place the same group of students
individually in front of a bank of CRT screens running traditional CIA
(computer-assisted instruction) software, and no common bond will will formed.
(I have observed this as both the author and user of CAI packages). For
lack of a better word, I have been calling this common bond a sense of community.
Is it possible to create this sense of community, this
sense of shared purpose, without sharing physical space? This, I think,
is the key to creating an effective teaching environment. In the past several
years we have seen a number of active and engaging communities formed in
cyberspace on the internet. It is an open question whether such a group
can be created for a class-like setting. The course material being developed
here is part of an experiment to help answer this question.
It is because this sense of community is so important
that I strongly urge students to join into one or perhaps more study groups.
Study groups can form around physical proximity (two or three people working
at the same location meeting, say, during lunch hour) or around common interests
(two or three people working on projects in Java, for example,``meeting''
via electronic mail). I will try to help in whatever ways I can to form
such study groups.
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The instructor is Professor Timothy Budd, from Oregon State
University.
Our TA for this term is
Savithri Venkatachalapathy, otherwise know as Savi.
She can be reached at venkasav@cs.orst.edu.
I will ask that every member of the class introduce themself in a short
e-mail introduction.
Students who are able can also create a home page.
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Participants are expected to have access to a World-Wide-Web
browser, and be able to send and receive electronic mail. A graphical browser
(such as Netscape) is preferable, however a text-only browser (such as Lynx)
can be used if necessary. (In the latter case certain essential figures may
have to be mailed to the participant by ordinary postal mail).
The web browser will be used to read the study material,
while electronic mail will be the medium for discussions, homework, and examination.
If necessary, students can be given accounts on an
OSU or OCATE machine in order to create their own web pages, answer questions,
and even develop their projects. Students requiring these services should
contact Professor Budd.
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My office is Dearborn 218, on the OSU campus. Office
hours are MWF from 11 to 12, although you are welcome to try and drop
by at other times on MWF. Phone is 541-737-5581. Fax is 541-737-3014. E-mail is budd@cs.orst.edu.
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This course is based around my book, An
Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming, 3E (published by Addison-Wesley Longman, 2002). You should
be able to find a copy of this book at any good technical bookstore
(such as Powells in Portland),
or you can order it on-line.
In the past the on-line prices were often less than the OSU bookstore price,
but now they seem very similar.
A variety of information for the textbook, include an errata
sheet, is available on-line.
In addition to the textbook, students will likely want to purchase a
reference manual for whatever language they are using for their project.
The OSU bookstore has quite a range of titles, as do many other technical
bookstores. If asked (in the discussion group) I can suggest a few titles.
Other Books I have written
I've written many
books, several of which are related to the topic of this class.
- If you are using C++, you may want to learn about the new STL data
structures classes. I have a data structures textbook
that discusses this topic.
- If you are using Java, I have a book on Understanding Java,
it is basically the material from this course, but tied specifically to
Java.
- Another project is a book entitled C++ for Java Programmers.
It is designed to help programmers trained in Java make the transition to
C++. This just appeared in March of 1999.
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A course is much more than simply a textbook. The
lectures themselves are only the beginning.
- Every chapter of the textbook comes with a set
of study questions. These are intended to be relatively simple questions,
which merely ensure the student is learning the essential points of the
material. Participants will be required to submit answers to these questions.
Submissions will be directed to the instructor or teaching assistant using
electronic mail. Study question answers are due by midnight on Sunday following
the week in which the given chapter is studied. The Professor and/or Teaching
Assistant will examine the student responses, but no ``grade'' will be
assigned, other than a binary grade of completed/not completed. (I have
pedagogical reasons for requiring the student actually write down the answers
to these questions, see my earlier comments on asynchronous
learning for some comments on pedagogy; however it is also the case that
this is the on-line equivalent of taking attendance -- rather than seeing
if the student is attending the lecture, it is seeing if the student is attending
to the lecture.)
- Prior to submitting their answers to the study questions to the
TA or instructor, students are encouraged to discuss the material in small
groups among themselves.
- Students will be encouraged to participate in a hopefully broad-based
and on-going discussion carried on through an electronic mailing list.
It is through the medium of this list that we hope to create the feeling
of a ``community'' of people working together on a common purpose.
Students will be encouraged to comment on and expand upon topics covered
in the lecture, ask questions when they encounter ideas they do not understand,
and in general take control of their own educational progress.
- As part of this process of building a community, I would ask that
every participant begin the term by writing a short e-mail message
that introduces themselves, sharing this information with the other members
of the class. Give your name, your current affiliation, your location,
your interests, and whatever other information you feel like sharing with
other members of the course.
- Another way of trying to build a community out of a widely dispersed
group is to ask that everybody who is able build a home page. I
will make available a group page that gives links to all submitted home
pages. For those without access to a web server, I will create accounts
on one of our machines just for this purpose.
- For students taking the course for credit, about half-way through
the term there will be an examination. The format of the examination
varies from term to term. It may be similar to the study questions, or it
may be more open-ended. The examination will be presented on-line, and students
are simply placed on their honor that they will answer the questions without
assistance from other members of the class, and without accessing the on-line
material.
- The final portion of the class is a project. More details
on the project are available in the following section.
- Participants are requested to keep a small journal in which
they describe their course experience. This will help in generating more
useful course evaluations at the end of the term.
For those taking the course for credit, the final grade will be determined
by the percentage of study questions completed, the mid-term examination,
and an evaluation of the final project (both the program and
the report). Completion of all material is sufficient to obtain a grade of
``B''. To obtain an ``A'' grade the student must demonstrate creativity as
well as a firm mastery of the course material.
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In order to reduce the load on the Teaching Assistant
and instructor and to encourage greater interaction on the part of participants,
students are encouraged to form study groups. Study groups work best if
there is physical proximity (such as a number of students from the same industrial
site), however they can also be made to work using electronic mail. Study
groups can also be formed around common interests, for example people using
Delphi for their programming project. While study groups are not a requirement,
they are nevertheless useful. The instructor will try to help in the formation
of such groups.
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Students taking the course for credit are required to
complete a project in an object-oriented language of their choice.
The only requirement for this project is that it be
suitable as a vehicle for demonstrating to the teaching assistant and the
professor that the student understands the principles of object-oriented
programming. Part of a successful completion of this assignment is understanding
and selecting a type of project that is so suited. In discussions in the
mailing list I will suggest ideas that have proven to be successful projects
in the past.
Students can work in teams on a project. Teams
can be no larger than four individuals, and team projects are held to a
higher standard than are individual projects.
Projects need not be a task specific to this course.
A project that is useful at work or as part of a larger research program
or even in another course can be proposed. In such cases approval for the
use of the project in this fashion must be obtained not only from myself,
but also from the appropriate instructor or supervisor.
Before week six a description of the project
must be submitted. This description will include the language and platform
to be used, the members of the team, and background on the project (such
as if it is being used in a research program or course). The TA and/or instructor
may comment on the project, or may simply register an assent.
Where practical, source code or executable versions
of the project will be made available to the entire class for examination
during the last week of the course.
In addition to a working project, students must submit
a short (five to twenty page) report describing the project, and how
object oriented principles were used in the programming of the project. The
report should be well-written, formatted and spell checked. The report is
used to determine how well you understood the concepts that have been discussed
in class, so it should be detailed. Your grade is based on the quality of
the report as well as the coding for the project.
Projects
from Fall 1995 Class
Projects
from Spring 1995 Class
Projects
from Fall 1996 Class
Projects
from Spring 1997 Class
Projects from
Spring 1998
directory
of previous projects
Ideas for Possible
Projects
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In class ``discussions'' we be conducted using an e-mail
mailing list. The address for this list is class-cs582@engr.orst.edu
You can contribute to a discussion by simply sending mail to this address.
Those of you who have a mail alias file may wish to select a shorter name
for this address. Only those people who have registered for the course can
be placed on the mailing list.
The mail list is archived, which you can access from the
web page.
For example, you can register a different mail address if you wish.
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Much of what goes on in this class will occur using
the medium of electronic mail. E-mail is a very powerful, and sometimes
dangerous tool. Please remember the following:
- For many of the participants, no matter where
they are physically located, English is not a native language. Please be
forgiving of errors in spelling, grammar, or syntax, and please don't let
a worry about committing such errors prevent you from participating. (Just
to make you feel more comfortable, I will guarantee that I will make at least
a few hundred such errors myself over the course of the term).
- Misinterpretation is very easy in e-mail.
There is no ``body language'' to give context to statements, only the words
themselves. Something you view as an off-the-cuff throw-away line may be
taken as a serious insult by somebody else. Avoid flames, by avoiding sparks.
Strive for civility, please.
- There will be many on-going and inter-weaved
threads of discussion. Try to provide context, but do so in a concise fashion.
Do not simply include in your e-mail the entire text of a message you are
responding to, but do include hints, such as starting out by saying
``Regarding the assertion that classes are unnecessary, since everything
you can do with classes you can do with delegation, I think that .... ''
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The following calendar lists the intended dates for
discussing specific sections of the text, as well as hyperlinks to the associated
lectures and audio files. (Audio files not yet available for the 3rd edition,
sorry). Participants are asked to try to stay as close as possible to this
schedule.
A table of Study Questions To Date
is available.
- Week 1
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- Introductions, Getting Started, Learning how to use the Web.
- Chapter
1 - Thinking Object Oriented
- Chapter
2 - Abstraction
- Week 2
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- Week 3
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- Week 4
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- Week 5
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- Week 6
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- Applications of Polymorphism
- Chapter
19 - Container Classes
- Chapter
20 - The STL
- Chapter
21 - Frameworks
- Project Description and Examinations Due by November 5
- Week 7
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- Week 8
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- Week 9
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- Week 10
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- Project Demonstrations, Evaluation, Wrap up Discussions
- All course related material due by March 12.
A table of links to students home pages. Creating a home
page is encouraged, but is not required.
External Links
Here are some external links related to object-oriented programming:
If you have links you think might be appropriate here, let me know.