Welcome to CMPT 166 Spring 2013!

This is a first course in computer programming, and is meant for people with an interest in interactive graphics and animation. No previous experience or knowledge of computer programming is needed.

Weekly Lectures

Weekly lectures occur 8:30am to 9:30am every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in room 5280 (Surrey). You should attend every lecture. If you miss a lecture, then it is your responsibility to find out what you missed.

The lectures follow the schedule below.

Office Hours and Email

The teaching assistant (TA) is:

  • Sushant Joshi, (sushantj [at] sfu [dot] ca), In the lab: 9:30 - 12:30

The course instructor is Oren Shklarsky (oshklars [at] sfu [dot] ca). Feel free to email him any time to ask questions. His office hours are every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9:30am to 10:30am in office 4134. (Surrey).

Warning

Make sure to include CMPT 166 in the subject line of your email!

Sometimes we will send you email via the course mailing list. Check the 166 mailing list archive if you miss a message.

Please note that while we try to answer email as quickly as possible, we can’t promise immediate responses.

Weekly Labs

Weekly labs are every Wednesday from 9:30am to 12:20pm in room 4050 (Surrey). You should attend every lab. Some labs may cover specific course topics. If you miss a lab, then it is your responsibility to find out what you missed.

Important

There are no labs (tutorials) in the first week of classes!

Marking Scheme

Note

Students must attain at least %40 in the final exam in order to obtain a clear pass (C or better). The Grading FAQ explains what this means in more detail.

The Grading FAQ has answers to many commonly asked questions about final grades and how they may be calculated.

Forum

An online forum has been opened for students of CMPT 166, as a place to ask questions about assignments, tests, course material, etc.

After clicking login in the upper-right corner, login with your SFU computing ID, and select the CMPT 166 Discussion Board tab, followed by the forums link on the left.

Feel free to post any questions you have under the relevant topic. The course instructor and TA will access this website frequently to answer questions.

Ethics

All students in this course are expected to follow a few basic rules of ethical conduct:

  • As a member of the Simon Fraser University community, you are bound by its Code of Academic Integrity and Good Conduct. Read it!
  • Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all assignments and assessed activities must be your own original work. You must cite any help you get, whether it be from people (friends, TAs, instructors, your uncle who works at Microsoft), or from books, websites, magazines, and so on.
  • You may of course work with others in an effort to understand the material, but you are responsible for mastering and understanding everything yourself.
  • You may not share your assignments with other students in the course or not in the course. For instance, we consider it dishonest if you let another student read a program you have written, e.g. giving a friend a copy of your program so they can learn from it is not acceptable in this course.
  • If you get the help of a tutor or assistant (e.g. someone who answers a question you ask on a web forum), or an academic assistance service of any kind, you must provide the following information:
    • Contact information.
    • A brief description of the nature of the assistance.
    • Copies of all materials given to the assistant.
    • Copies of all materials returned by the assistant.
  • Markers may sometimes use software to check for suspicious assignments. Such programs simply flag suspicious files, and the marker will then manually investigate further to determine if any copying has occurred.
  • Assignment extensions or deferrals are usually only granted for medical or compassionate reasons. For instance, we need a doctor’s note confirming that you are so unwell as to need an extension. A note that merely says you visited a doctor is not usually good enough.

Processing Books

While you don’t need to buy any books for this course, if you do want more information and examples of Processing, here are a few Processing books you might be interested in:

The Processing website lists a number of other books.

See also

Check out Khan Academy for an easy way to test out shapes without compiling

Next topic

1. Introduction