Math 127 (Policies)

Programming Policy:

You are expected to have some experience with programming prior to this course, as most of the problem sets will include implementing an algorithm. The programs you write will not be fancy, but they will require that you be comfortable writing and debugging programs of perhaps two to three pages in length. The types of programming features you should know are:

How to read input from the user and write output to the user
How to perform loops and conditional statements
How to declare and call subroutines
How to specify and use an array (i.e. a subscripted variable)
How to write recursive function calls

The programs we write will not require complicated programming statements; the sophistication comes from the algorithms that we will implement, not the language features you will be using.

You are allowed to used whatever language you like, with the following caveats:

My preferred languages are:
- Perl
- TCL/TK
- C++
My second choices are:
- C or Pascal
- Java (if you have to)
- FORTRAN (if you really are into numerical programming)
- Mathematica (if you have no other choice)

I like the first two because I can run them without compiling them, so we don't run into any compiler incompatibilities. If you are going to use a compiled language, I would prefer that you keep the code generic. In particular, I don't want it to have any IBM/PC graphics calls or mouse I/O dependencies.

Some of you may wish to use Mathematica to write your code. I would prefer you didn't since I'm boycotting it, but if you must, please be sure that your code works with version 3.0 as I do have access to this if I really need it. I do not have ready access to Maple or MATLAB, so I would prefer you not use these as your programming language.

Math 127 (Winter 2000) web pages
Created: 03 Jan 1999
Last modified: 14 Dec 1999 09:25:32
Comments to: dpvc@union.edu

	Homework Policy
	Course Outline
	Course Policies
	Office Hours