CISC 181: Introduction to Computer Science

Catalog Description:
Principles of computer science illustrated and applied through programming in the object oriented language C++. Programming projects illustrate computational problems, styles, and issues that arise in computer systems development and in all application areas of computation.

Current Texts:
C++ How to Program
Deitel and Deitel
Prentice Hall, 3rd edition, 2001

Unix Unbounded
Afzal
Prentice-Hall, 3rd edition

Laboratory Manual
University of Delaware

Goals:
This course is an introduction to computer science for CISC majors. It introduces the programming language (C++), introduces certain elementary data structures, emphasizes abstract data types, and culminates with some of the object-oriented programming features of C++.

Content:
The course covers chapters 1-9, and parts of chapters 11, 14 and 15 of C++ How to Program. It includes weekly lab exercises emphasizing programming language constructs and software engineering tools like editors and debuggers (e.g., dbx), and three to seven programming assignments in C++.
Key topics include:

• machine oriented languages: C++
• abstract data types and classes
• object-oriented design
• arrays, strings, pointers
• linked lists and stacks
• operator overloading and inheritance
• designing software
• program testing and debugging

Corequisites: MATH 115, MATH117 MATH 171, MATH221, or MATH 241.

Restrictions: Requires a minimum grade of C- in CISC105 or prior programming experience in a high level language.