Lecture Notes 0: Welcome to CS1111

Objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

Identify the rules for the course.
Identify all the tools and mechanisms that will be used in the course.
Explain the difference between Programming and Computer Science.

First Steps

Sign up to Ed (check your GWU email for an invitation).
Fill out course survey available on Ed.

The Syllabus (Course Information)

The class information is located in the Syllabus link of the navigation bar. We will go over it now. When you are done checking it out, make sure to continue here.

The Most Important Point: This course is designed so that anyone can learn to program and do well even without any prior experience!

Using Ed and Blackboard, and virtual meetings

We will use Ed as our main communication hub.
Please join Ed (via invite emailed to you).

We will use Blackboard to submit graded assignments.
We will be posting links on Blackboard to submit homeworks and exercises.

Why do we (or should we) learn to program?

There are many answers here, let's chat about it!

The HelloWorld program

This is the classic basic example (the colors are just highlighting):

public class Hello {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // generate some simple output
        System.out.println("Hello, World!");
    }
}

This program is written in a programming language called Java. After it gets processed and executed by the computer, the result is that a phrase is printed in the Terminal (more on this later):
"Hello, World!"

Let's visualize this programming running together by copying it (already done for you) into the Java Visualizer! Note: we will be using the Java Visualizer most of the semester.

The program-to-print process (in simplified form) looks like this:

Class participation activity: [5 minutes]: Modify the code in the Java Visualizer to print out your favorite color (you can make this up). Then, run the visualization to make sure it prints to the terminal. Finally, copy the link the Visualizer creates for a code snippet, and share this link with the class on Ed under the thread titled "day 1 in-class exercise for Thursday 8/24". Ask a neighbor if you need help with any part of this exercise -- we want to make sure the whole class is able to use these tools! If both of you still have questions, raise your hand in lecture and we'll be happy to help!

Class participation activity: [1 minute]: Modify the code in the Java Visualizer that we used earlier to try to "break" it by making the compiler unable to translate the Java code into bytecode. We know that it is "safe" for us to change the message "Hello World!" that gets printed, but see what happens when you touch other parts of this code. You should see an error message if you successfully broke the code -- we'll see a lot of these during the semester, so don't be afraid of them! We'll also learn how to interpret these error messages from the compiler.