Welcome to 4280

Watt Ewe Knead 2 No Here are some basic things about this class.

• Current Classes Page is a portion of the course syllbus. It contains stipulations for all of my classes. In particular, it will tell you that all items in this class are weighted by a point value. The menus on my website point at useful stuff such as my schedule.
• Specs Page contains information about all assignments and programming projects.
• Canvas is the administrative portal for the collection of assignments and the administration of quizzes. I will use the Canvas gradebook.

Pods We will create pods today. You were asked to put your email name on a slip of paper when you came in. We will use a randomization drocedure to determine the pods in this class. Get to know your podmates. If you miss class, ask one of them to debrief you on the day's proceedings and any announcements made in class.

Beginning of Term Assignment This is listed in Canvas. See beginningOfTerm.php for particulars. Get Python installed. And download the Academic Honesty Agreement. I rarely ask you to print anything, but you are required to print, read, understand, sign and date this agreement and submit it to me. You are bound by its conditions.

Algorithms

We will warm up our Python and Java knowledge with a little dose of these.

Algorithm(n) Set of instructions to accomplish a task

Computational Algorithms The F-word in computing is "finite." To be of any use, an algorithm must exhibit these three characteristics.

• An algorithm's instructions must be absolutely unambiguous
• An algorithm must halt in a finite amount of time.
• An algirhithm must only use a finite amout of memory.

A Little Exercise Write a function/method that accepts an integer as an argument and which returns a string containing a binary representation. We will look at this code next time.

If you are coding in Java, make the method a static method and test it out in a main.