Sections 0101, 0102 and Honors

Tuesday September 5, 1995

Assigned Reading: Chapter 1

Handouts (available on-line):

• Course Description
• Course Syllabus
• Project Policy and Due Dates
• Frequently Asked Questions about Placement in CMSC 201

Topics Covered:

• Administrative details: office hours, grading policy, project policy and late policy. See handouts.
• A brief comparison of machine language, assembly language and modern programming languages. Argued that the readability of modern programming languages is an important feature --- especially, since software needs frequent maintenance.
• Readable programs are also important because it helps us debug programs. One reason that debugging is difficult is because we cannot check every possible input to a program. There are just too many possible inputs. Checking every case of a program that adds 100 numbers with value between 1 and 100 takes more centuries than there are atoms in the universe.
• Mentioned that "procedural abstraction" is a main theme of this course. You'll find out by the end of the semester what it really means.