Fall 2005 - Fall 2009

This course is required for all incoming CCS Computer Science freshmen.

Although class space may be acquired via GOLD, final enrollment will be determined by the instructor.

This course is the first half of a two quarter sequence (CS1A/CS1B) designed to prepare students to take upper division courses in Computer Science, and participate in undergraduate research projects in Computer Science under the direction of CCS and College of Engineering Computer Science faculty.

In both quarters, the course is paired with CS1L, "Programming Lab", where students undertake individual and group programming projects to build and reinforce their skills and knowledge.

CS1A provides students with the opportunity to build skills and knowledge in the following areas: problem solving and algorithm development, Java, C and C++ programming, software development tools, programming language paradigms (structured, functional and object-oriented programming), basic UNIX utilities and tools, basic data structures including arrays and linked lists representations of lists, stacks, queues, and binary trees, binary and linear search, sorting techniques, iteration vs. recursion, basic running time analysis, data representation.

In addition to basic skills in C, C++, and Java (which is a fundamental preparation for upper division CS courses at UCSB), other programming languages such as Scheme, Python, JavaScript and others may be explored either because of the principles they illustrate, or based on student interest.