CS 241 - Foundations of Sequential Programs

Supported by the Instructional Support Group.

University of Waterloo : Faculty of Mathematics : School of Computer Science

General Information

• Calendar Description - Official course description from academic calendar.
• Handbook Description - Longer course description from Computer Science Undergraduate Handbook.
• Coordinators - People responsible for the long-term structure of the course.
• Policies - Important policies you need to be aware of.

Current Term (Spring 2012)

Announcements

Tuesday, May 15th: The materials for tomorrow's tutorial (week 3) have been posted.

Friday, May 11th: Assignments 3 and 4 have been posted.

Tuesday, May 8th: The first CS 241 tutorial is tomorrow. The tutorial materials are posted below.

Monday, May 7th: Assignment 2 has been posted. Note that the cs241.binasm tool required to complete the assignment will not be available until after the Assignment 1 deadline.

Wednesday, May 2nd: The course syllabus has been updated to fix an error. Specifically, we will not be having lab sessions on May 9th as the syllabus originally stated; there will be regular tutorials in MC 4041 during the scheduled times.

General Information

• Syllabus
• Schedule of Classes
  On May 29th only, the schedule for CS 241 is as follows:
  

  CS 241 001 May 29 - 8:30-9:50am	HH 280
  CS 241 002 May 29 - 11:30am-12:50pm	OPTOM 401

• Personnel
  • Instructor
    • Troy Vasiga
      • Email: tmjvasig
      • Office: DC 3112
      • Office hours: Tuesday/Thursday 1:00pm-2:00pm or by email appointment.
  • Tutor
    • Gareth Davies
      • Email: cs241@student.cs.uwaterloo.ca
      • Office hours: Monday/Wednesday 11:00am-12:30pm or by email appointment in MC 4065.
  • CS 241 TAs
    • Office hours: Monday 2:00pm-3:00pm and Tuesday 3:00pm-4:00pm in MC 4065.

• View Your Marks

  For your convenience, we provide a facility to check your unofficial marks online.

  As your assignment and exam marks are recorded, they will be made available on this website. You will need your UWdir username (8 characters or less) and password in order to log in; your password is the same one that you use for Quest. Errors in the marks should be reported to a tutor.

Piazza

We will be using Piazza in CS 241. Piazza provides a forum for students to discuss and ask questions about course material and assignments.

If you are enrolled in the course, a Piazza invitation should have been sent to your UW email address. After you have signed up, you can access the Piazza forum for the course here.

We encourage you to use Piazza regularly. It is a handy and timely way for students to learn from each other and the course staff. Essential announcements will be posted to Piazza as well as the announcements section of this webpage.

Tutorial Materials

• Assembly Language
• Week 2 Tutorial - "Assembly Language Programming Pt. I"
• Week 3 Tutorial - "Assembly Language Programming Pt. II"

Assignments

Assignments must be submitted using the Marmoset Submission and Testing Server.

• Assignment 1 (due 10:00 p.m. Thursday, May 10, 2012)
• Assignment 2 (due 10:00 p.m. Thursday, May 17, 2012)
• Assignment 3 (due 10:00 p.m. Thursday, May 24, 2012)
• Assignment 4 (due 10:00 p.m. Thursday, May 31, 2012)

Resources

General resources

• Troy's Lecture Slide Skeletons

Class Notes

• MIPS example 0: adding reg. $5 and reg. $7, storing into reg. $3
• MIPS example 1: adding 42 and 52, storing into reg. $3
• MIPS example 2: finding the absolute value of reg. $1
• MIPS example 3: reading element 5 of an array into reg. $3
• MIPS example 4: calculating 13+12+...+2+1
• MIPS example 5: outputing characters
• MIPS example 6: calling a procedure (part a: calling code) (part b: procedure)
• Assembling the beq instruction

Additional Material for assignment 1 (and beyond)

• MIPS Machine Language Reference Sheet
• A brief introduction to the CSCF UNIX environment
• Unix commands and syntax you should know
• Resources for completing CS 241 assignments
• Binary/Decimal/Hex/Character Conversions
• w3m tutorial for submitting to Marmoset remotely
• marmoset_submit tutorial for submitting to Marmoset from the command line

Cheating Policy

Academic Integrity

In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. All members of the UW community are expected to hold to the highest standard of academic integrity in their studies, teaching, and research.

The Office of Academic Integrity's website contains detailed information on UW policy for students and faculty.

This site explains why academic integrity is important and how students can avoid academic misconduct. It also identifies resources available on campus for students and faculty to help achieve academic integrity in - and out - of the classroom.

Grievance

A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4.

Discipline

A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offenses, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offense, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offenses (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about "rules" for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 - Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline.

Avoiding Academic Offenses

Most students are unaware of the line between acceptable and unacceptable academic behaviour, especially when discussing assignments with classmates and using the work of other students. For information on commonly misunderstood academic offenses and how to avoid them, students should refer to the Faculty of Mathematics Cheating and Student Academic Discipline Policy.

Appeals

A student may appeal the finding and/or penalty in a decision made under Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances (other than regarding a petition) or Policy 71 - Student Discipline if a ground for an appeal can be established. Read Policy 72 - Student Appeals.