| To the faculty page of James Tam | Return to the course web page |
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Day/Time |
Lectures will
be held live during the scheduled day/time (passcode for both =
hope)
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James Tam |
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Official office time: Monday 11:30 AM - Noon, Wednesday 2:10 - 2:50 PM.
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Email: tam@ucalgary.ca (Make sure you specify the course name and number in the subject line) |
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| General information |
Official course
information sheet (summary of official course requirements). The course
information sheet applies to both lectures.
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| General assignment information |
Grade calculator to estimate your term grade: [Excel spreadsheet] Academic misconduct vs. collaboration: what is allowed for this class Practice assignments: They won't be for credit but they're extra problems that you can try in order to improve your programming and problem solving skills |
| Official recommended textbook |
"Python for everyone:
3rd edition"
(Cay S. Horstmann, Rance D. Necaise)
Wiley,
3rd edition.
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| Link to other UC licensed textbooks | Also you can search the UC library website [Link 1] or [Link 2] for 'free' python eTexts (requires authentication). |
Teaching tutorials (all are located in MS317)
- Tutorials include mandatory information for the course. In addition to following the lecture material you need to be utilizing the material provided by the Teaching Assistants. Time will be spent on the following: TA's teaching new skills, discussion of assignment requirements.
Tutorial
Instructor name
Contact information: if your questions are short then you can use email otherwise please bring your questions to the CT/Help Tutorial
T04 MoWe 12:00PM - 12:50PM Farajpour, Niloufar (User of MAC-OS) niloufar.farajpour@ucalgary.ca T05 TuTh 8:00AM - 8:50AM Md, Jaber Al Nahian (Windows user) mdjaberal.nahian@ucalgary.ca T06 TuTh 9:00AM - 9:50AM Sandykbayeva, Danissa (Windows user) danissa.sandykbay1@ucalgary.ca T07 TuTh 12:00PM - 12:50PM Sidratul, Montaha (Windows user) sidratul.montaha@ucalgary.ca T08 TuTh 1:00PM - 1:50PM Meghji, Safeena (User of Windows, MAC-OS) safeena.meghji@ucalgary.ca T09 TuTh 2:00PM - 2:50PM Meghji, Safeena (User of Windows, MAC-OS) safeena.meghji@ucalgary.ca T10 TuTh 3:00PM - 3:50PM Md, Jaber Al Nahian (Windows user) mdjaberal.nahian@ucalgary.ca T11 TuTh 4:00PM - 4:50PM Sidratul, Montaha (Windows user) sidratul.montaha@ucalgary.ca T13 WeFr 2:00PM - 2:50PM Farajpour, Niloufar (User of MAC-OS) niloufar.farajpour@ucalgary.ca T14 WeFr 3:00PM - 3:50PM Farajpour, Niloufar (User of MAC-OS) niloufar.farajpour@ucalgary.ca In addition to the Teaching Assistants who teach sections there are two additional TAs who will staff the remote Zoom Help tutorials (Danissa also staffs a few shifts in the person Help tutorial as well):
- Farzana Aktar (Windows user). This person is also the designated as the Teaching Assistant officially answering questions that you post in D2L under 'Discussions'. Email: farzana.aktar@ucalgary.ca
- Danissa Sandykbayeva (Windows user). Email: danissa.sandykbay1@ucalgary.ca
Teaching schedule for the teaching tutorials
Shortcuts to each week
- #Tutorials_week_1 (Sept. 10 - 16)
- #Tutorials_week_2 (Sept. 17 - 23)
- #Tutorials_week_3 (Sept. 24 - 30)
- #Tutorials_week_4 (Oct. 1 - 7)
- #Tutorials_week_5 (Oct. 8 - 14)
- #Tutorials_week_6 (Oct. 15 - 21)
- #Tutorials_week_7 (Oct. 22 - 28)
- #Tutorials_week_8 (Oct. 29 - Nov. 4)
- #Tutorials_week_9 (Nov. 5 - 11)
- No classes Nov. 12 - 18
- #Tutorials_week_10 (Nov. 19 - 25)
- #Tutorials_week_11 (Nov. 26 - Dec. 2)
- #Tutorials_week_12 (Dec. 3 - 9)
Week
Activities for the teaching tutorials
Sept. 3 - 9
No tutorials this week
Tutorials week 1: Sept. 10 - 16 (tutorials start this week)
First tutorial:
- Time to work through D2L/file extension assignment [A0] with the instructor being available for help.
- Going over the [Premini-A1] requirements
Second tutorial: [Examples] [Exercises]
Operator precedence, the order of execution for python operator
- Running the IDLE python editor
- Display of output
- Triple quoted output
- Common operators
Tutorials week 2: Sept. 17 - 23
First tutorial [Examples] [Exercises]
- Code details of documentation and variable naming conventions
- Coding details of named constants
- Getting user input
- Formatting output using escape codes
- Variables & information types
- Formatting output using format specifiers
Second tutorial [Examples]
- Types of programming errors: syntax, runtime, logic
- Syntax for writing documentation, assignment documentation requirements for your python programs
- Making backups and program versioning
- Going over assignment requirements for [mini-A1]
Tutorials week 3: Sept. 24 - 30 (Saturday September 30 is not a workday)
First tutorial
- Going over assignment requirements for [A1]
Second tutorial [Examples] [Exercises]
- IF
- IF-ELSE
- Logic (AND, OR, NOT) and branching
Tutorials week 4: Oct. 1 - 7
First tutorial [Examples]
- IF-ELIF
- Multiple IFs
- Examples of logic errors in branches
- Going over assignment requirements for [mini-A2a]
Second tutorial [Examples] [Exercises]
- Introducing WHILE-loops
- Introducing FOR-loops
- Iterating (stepping through) strings using a loop.
- Generating random numbers using the random module (library)
Tutorials week 5: Oct. 8 - 14 (Monday Oct. 10 is a holiday)
First tutorial (Monday: T04, Tuesday: T05 - T11, Wednesday: T13 - T14):
- No tutorial on Monday due to holiday for T04
- To synchronize teaching the other tutorials (T05-T14) will be cancelled this week.
Second tutorial [Examples]
- Going over assignment requirements for [mini-A2b]
- Bug hunting: Tips for finding and fixing the errors in your programs.
- TAs will clarify what is and is not allowed in terms of helping others (collaboration) vs. academic misconduct. Presentation material [PDF] [PowerPoint]
Tutorials week 6: Oct. 15 - 21
First tutorial Second tutorial [Examples] [Exercises]
- Tracing simple programs employing functional decomposition (defining and calling your own functions)
- Declaring variables that are local to a function.
- Scope: global constants vs. local variables.
- Simple parameter passing examples.
- Introducing function return values: learning the mechanics of "how to do it"
Tutorials week 7: Oct. 22 - 28
First tutorial [Examples] [Exercises]
- More complex examples of programs employing functions: return values, local variables, global variables, scope, tracing the order of function calls, parameter passing mechanisms (value, reference), the importance of programming style (tracing an example employing bad style in order to illustrate)
Second tutorial
Tutorials week 8: Oct. 29 - Nov. 4
Tutorial resources for the week: [Examples] [Exercises] First tutorial (one of the exercises includes a review of something similar to the midterm questions from this semester).
- Review exercise: branching, looping, nesting
- Basics of lists vs. strings.
- Creating fixed sized lists, creating lists dynamically & randomly.
- List references and passing lists as parameters.
- Using the chr function and ASCII codes.
Second tutorial
- 2D lists:
- Creating fixed sized lists, creating lists dynamically & randomly.
- Accessing and modifying list elements.
- Checking the state of elements in a 2D list.
- Boolean functions for 2D lists.
Tutorials week 9: Nov. 5 - 11
First tutorial:
- Review of pre-midterm topics: Because the proportion of students who appear to have trouble with pre-midterm concepts (as compared to students in other semesters) this tutorial will include a number of review examples and exercises: [Examples] [Exercises]
- Functional decomposition: some extra examples and exercises that are largely inspired by the problems I saw in student A2 programs: [Examples] [Exercise from lecture that we didn't have time to cover]
Second tutorial:
- A new random number method 'randint' (it will be used in the solution for one of the 2D list exercises: [Example]
- 1D list practice problems (from an external website but fairly appropriate for this course): [1D list exercises]
- 2D list exercises to develop your problem solving skills but also may be helpful with Full-A3. [2D list exercises] [Other 2D list problems for extra-extra practice]
No tutorials: Nov. 12 - 18
Reading week: no teaching or help tutorials scheduled for this week Tutorials week 10: Nov. 19 - 25
First tutorial: [Examples] [Exercises]
- TAs over go over common student issues encountered with full A2.
- Pass-by-reference: modifying list data during a function call.
- List operation: Deep copy
- Determining the relative (row,column) coordinates of other cells in a list for any given location in the list.
- Implementing a [debug mode] in a program (this is a required feature of Full-A3)
- Going over assignment requirements for [mini-A3c]
Second tutorial: [Exercises]
- Going over assignment requirements for [A3]
- How to determine what functions that may be implemented from an assignment requirements document.
Tutorials week 11: Nov. 26 - Dec. 2
First tutorial
- Error handling with files: [Examples]
- Reading the contents of a file into a variable sized 2D list: [Example]
- Tuples and strings: [Examples]
Second tutorial:
- A multi-version example illustrating how programs with logic errors when reading from a file can be debugged. [Examples]
Tutorials week 12: Dec. 3 - 9 (Wed. Dec. 7 is the last day of classes)
All tutorials (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday): 'open tutorial'.
- No new teaching will occur.
- The tutorial instructor will be available during the scheduled tutorial time for the regular teaching tutorial.
- Similar to regular CT, students can attend the help session of any tutorial instructor and not just the one they are registered in.
- Here is a link to the [Teaching tutorial schedule] so you can see all the sessions of open tutorial for the week.
Help tutorials = Continuous tutorials (or CT for short) where you can go for help outside of class:
- These sessions will typically be staffed by the tutorial instructors but they are not mandatory for students and are provided so that you can get help
- You are NOT restricted getting help from the CT session staffed by the person whose tutorial you are registered in (you can go to any TA for help).
- If you have questions then it's best to ask them during the CT unless it's a question that can be answered fairly quickly via email.
Help/Continuous tutorial (CT) schedules:
- Remote CT:
- The two teaching assistants who staff the remote CT:
- Farzana Aktar (Windows user). This person is also the designated as the Teaching Assistant officially answering questions that you post in D2L under 'Discussions'.
- Zoom URL for Farzana's remote CT: https://ucalgary.zoom.us/j/6122414123
- Full Zoom invitation information for remote CT: [PDF invitation file]
- Danissa Sandykbayeva (Windows user). Besides administrative roles such as staffing the remote CT Danissa also teaches one of the tutorials.
- Zoom URL for Danissa's remote CT: https://ucalgary.zoom.us/j/8908908988
- Full Zoom invitation information for remote CT: [PDF invitation file]
- Only one person will be admitted in the Zoom room at a time. The rest will be held in the virtual waiting room until a spot is free. [If you don't know how a Zoom waiting room looks/works]
- [Remote CT schedule]
- In-person CT:
- Allow you to access face-to-face help.
- To reduce the anticipated wait time: Some shift may have two TAs staffing the same day/time.
- Look for the CT in the CPSC computer lab (first floor of Math Sciences beyond the security doors, there should be a sign near MS151 that specifies the location of the CT for CPSC 217.
- [In person CT schedule]