1. Welcome to the Computer and Information Technology program

2. Who am I? David Matuszek (muh-TOOZ-ik)
I prefer “Dave,” or maybe “Dr. Dave”
I’m the director of the MCIT program
I’m here to teach, not to do research
My most important courses are CIT 591 and CIT 594

3. Who are you?
Most of you are in the new MCIT program. You are here because:
You are extremely bright
You do not have a BA or BS in computer science
A few of you are in Bioinformatics
The rest of you are in other programs
You have a very wide range of backgrounds

4. What is this course? This is a beginning programming course
The language we are using is Java 2
The primary audience is MCIT students
This is the first of six required MCIT courses
It is also a service course for other students who need to learn to program
CIT 591 replaces CIS 500 in this role
If I can lure you into computing, I will!

5. Why are you here?
There are two good reasons for getting into computer science:
The job market is (usually) very good
Computer programming can be extremely satisfying and enjoyable
Which of these is more important?
Money is a necessity
You spend about 1/4 of your adult life working

6. What are you getting yourself into?
Programming is intellectually challenging
It can be tremendous fun…
…if you like that sort of thing!
Lifelong learning is essential
The technology is constantly changing
We cannot teach you all you need to know
We can point you in the right direction and give you a good, hard push--but the rest is up to you!

7. Programming can be fun Programming is puzzle-solving
Very little is mechanical, routine work
You always have to be thinking
If you like solving puzzles, there’s a good chance you will like programming
Some puzzles are hard
You need a tolerance for frustration
Solving hard puzzles can be very satisfying

8. Computer Science Computer science is the study of
what we can do with computers
how we can best do it
If we really understand how to do something, we can write a program to do it
We do a lot of things without knowing how we do them
Computer science is all about how to do things

9. CIT 591 is a programming course
Programming is teaching the computer how to do something
Programming, like woodworking, is a craft
To master a craft, you need both knowledge and experience
Even a poor woodworker can produce a useable chair
A master craftsman can produce a chair that is strong, comfortable, and beautiful

10. Beauty in computer science
Programs can be beautiful or ugly
I am not speaking metaphorically
Usually,
Blind people can’t appreciate fine paintings
Deaf people can’t appreciate good music
Non-mathematicians can’t appreciate elegant proofs
Non-programmers can’t appreciate the beauty in programs (but can often feel the lack of it!)

11. Basic esthetics People have different tastes in music, but…
A two-year old pounding on a piano is not making music
Very few musicians disagree on what notes make up a “chord,” or a “chord progression”
People have different tastes in programming, but many values are held in common
Programming is an art as well as a craft

12. Elegance
Powerful software can do everything you want to do--for example, Microsoft Word
Complex software is hard to learn and hard to use--for example, Microsoft Word
More power usually means more complexity
Elegant software somehow manages to be both simple and powerful

13. Elegance in mathematics
In school, Gauss was told to add up the numbers from 1 to 100
Gauss realized that = 101, = 101, = 101, and so on
There are fifty such pairs
The answer must be 50 x 101, or 5050
This is elegant: it saves work, and it’s easy to understand

14. Beauty in programming Outer beauty in programs consists of:
Doing a job the way the user wants it done
Providing a simple, intuitive set of controls
Working reliably, without crashes or glitches
Inner beauty in programs consists of:
Simple, elegant, efficient solutions to problems
Code that is easy to read and understand
Good commenting and coding style

15. Elegance in programming
Consider the following problem:
You are given a stack of cards, allegedly containing the numbers 1 through
…but there are only 99 cards
How do you determine which card is missing?
One solution:
Go through all the cards looking for 1, then do it again looking for 2, etc.
Is there a better way?

16. Elegance, again Suppose you are given a deck of 51 playing cards
How do you decide which card is missing?
Can you adapt Gauss’s solution to this problem?
Suppose you are given one thousand decks, each missing one (not all the same) card
Would this change the way you solve the problem?

17. What CIT 591 and 594 are about
You need to learn the craft of programming
How to design and write programs that work
How to write clear code and documentation
This is a skill, and it requires a lot of practice
In CIT 591 you will learn programming
A language (Java 2) and some basic skills
In CIT 594 you will concentrate more on computer science

18. Out with the old, in with the new
Geometry is about 2300 years old
It’s all based on straight lines and circles
These were viewed as idealizations of nature
There are no straight lines or circles in nature
Didn’t anybody notice?
Benoit Mandelbrot developed fractal geometry starting in about 1977
Even in a 2300 year old subject, things change!

19. Changes in computer science
Computer science is only about 55 years old
It’s changing much faster than geometry!
Java is about six years old
We will be covering Java features that didn’t exist this time last year
Change is rapid and accelerating
Dominant language of the 1990s: C++
Dominant language of early 2000s: Java
First GUI: Macintosh, 1984
First web browser: Mosaic, 1992
Web pages: HTML to DHTML to XML

20. What’s ahead? Half-life of CS knowledge: about 5 years
Typical length of career: about 40 years
What does this tell you?
Nobody expected: personal computers, graphical user interfaces, the mouse, the World Wide Web, the popularity of Java, etc.
There is only one safe prediction:
You will be taken by surprise!

21. Maybe you should learn accounting instead?
What can we possibly teach you that will do you any good five years from now?
Many underlying programming concepts and mathematical foundations don’t change
Programming paradigms change slowly
Each new language you learn will be easier to learn than the previous one, because most of the ideas in it will be familiar

22. But more importantly... The attitude you need doesn’t change
Always be prepared to learn
Take pride in your work, but--
Realize that your work is not, and can never be, perfect
Learn to welcome corrections and criticisms as helping you to perfect your work; do not take them personally
Seek out and fix problems, don’t avoid them
Be responsive to the realities of the situation

23. A little problem A 4 M 9
I know: each of the above cards has a letter on one side and a number on the other
My theory is: if a card has a vowel on one side, it has an even number on the other
I want to test my theory, but...
I want to turn over as few cards as possible
Which cards must I turn over ?

24. Answer to the cards problem
Theory: If vowel, then even
You have to look for things that show you are wrong, not things that show you are right!
This is part of what I mean by “attitude” A 4 M 9 2 K 8 E
don’t need
don’tneed
need
need

25. Small projects You can build a doghouse in a few hours
You don’t need a blueprint
The materials don’t cost much
A little knowledge of tools is enough
Imperfections are no big deal

26. Medium-sized projects
You can build a house in a year or so
You really do need blueprints
Excess materials mean wasted money
House building requires more skills: plumbing, bricklaying, electrical work, carpentry, etc.
Imperfections matter: you don’t want a leaky roof!
It’s easier if you aren’t doing it all by yourself

27. Large projects You cannot build a skyscraper by yourself
It’s just too much work for one person
You don’t have the money
You don’t have all the skills
Imperfections could be costly or even fatal
Skyscrapers can only be built by a team
Communication is essential
A “paper trail” is essential

28. What does that mean for CS?
What can we ask you to build in your classes?
What will be expected of you in industry?
We teach skyscraper-level skills, but
we ask you to apply those skills to doghouses
it’s silly, but what alternative do we have?
It’s up to you: When you leave here,
will you be able to build skyscrapers?
or will you just be very good at building doghouses?

29. Why am I here? My personal goals are For the MCIT students:
get everybody through this program
with the skills and attitudes you need to succeed
into a career that you will enjoy
For the non-MCIT students:
give you a solid understanding of basic programming
try to lure you into learning more about the field
For the program:
Produce really competent graduates that reflect well on the program

30. Academia vs. industry In industry, the focus is on getting things done
Your manager doesn’t want duplication of effort—two or more programmers doing the same thing
If it helps get the job done, getting programs from somewhere else—legally—is fine
Here, the emphasis is on learning how to do things
We want duplication of effort
We want you to all be learning the same things
We want you to do all the work

31. The Rules You may: You may not: Penalty for first offense:
discuss the assignments with one another
help others debug their work
use, without attribution, anything I post to the Web
You may not:
work together on the same program
copy another’s code, or allow your code to be copied
lend your code to someone else, or leave it lying around where someone else may copy it
use any code from textbooks or the Web without my permission
Penalty for first offense:
You will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct
You will receive an F in the course
If you think you may have accidentally broken a rule, come and talk to me about it

32. The End He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.
-- St. Francis of Assisi