Description

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Objectives

To develop an understanding of important intellectual concepts underlying major personal computer application categories, and the application of those concepts to problem solving. To develop an understanding of personal computer software and hardware appropriate for students who own and maintain their own machines. To develop methodologies for efficiently learning to use personal computer applications.

Intended Audience

CS 200 is intended for non-math majors with significant prior exposure to personal computers (equivalent to that obtained in CS 100) who wish to deepen their understanding of personal computers and how to use them effectively and efficiently.

Related Courses

Recommended Courses: CS 100 or Grade 11 or 12 OAC Computer Science or 4M Computer and Information Science.

Successors: CS 330, or any of the applications-oriented courses taught by various university departments.

Hardware & Software

Labs are run primarily on Macintoshes but some work can be done on Windows machines. Students who own a computer are encouraged to use it. (Most of the software used runs on both Macintosh and Windows computers.)

Assumed Background: Experience with standard applications software, as covered in CS 100.

References

Compulsory

The Non-Designers Design Book, 4th Ed., by R. Williams, Peachpit Press, 2004;

The Mac is not a Typewriter, 2nd Ed., by R. Williams, Peachpit Press, 2003;

Lecture notes

Additional

Learning Web Design, 4th Ed., by J. Niederst, E. O’Reilly

CSS Pocket Reference, 4th Ed., by Eric Meyer O’Reilly Media Inc.

Schedule

Three hours of lecture and four hours of supervised laboratory per week. Normally available in Winter, and Spring.

Notes

Students will require an average of 3 hours per week of extra (i.e., unsupervised) lab time to complete assignments. The course ends with a practical lab exam that requires the integrated use of several applications.

Outline

Methodology (2 hours)

Techniques for efficiently learning and using applications, and for diagnosing problems.

System Administration (2 hours)

Booting. System extensions. File systems and file system maintenance. File system organization. Security and access control. Backup disciplines.

Structured Word Processing (4 hours)

Character versus paragraph styles. Flat versus hierarchical styles. Conditional text. Good graphical design.

Vector and Pixel Graphics (4 hours)

Colour models. Half-toning and dithering. Image manipulation, layers and masks. Vector object properties and named graphical styles. Bezier curves.

Networking and The Internet (2 hours)

Web site structure, design, and security. HTML. CGIs. Cascading style sheets. Good graphical design.

Scripting (4 hours)

Intra-application scripting. System-level inter-application scripting. Programming in the small. Debugging.

Relational Databases (6 hours)

Table design. Form design. Data validation. Referential integrity. Indices. Client/server databases. Serving the web from a database. SQL.

Links

Course Description from Cheriton School of Computer Science

Course Description in Course Calendar

Should I Take CS200

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Necessary Background

CS 200 is intended for non-math-majors who already feel comfortable working with standard personal computer applications such as:

Word (a word processor)
Excel (a spreadsheet)
FileMaker (a relational database)
Chrome (a web browser)

Experience with any common application in each category is sufficient, but you should not lack experience in more than one category, and should plan to make up any such lack by independent study during the term.

Pre-Requisites

There is no pre-requisite for CS200. It may be to your advantage to have taken CS100 but it is not required.

What’s the difference between CS 100 and CS 200?

CS 100 is intended for people having little or no experience with computers. By the end of CS 100, students should feel comfortable using Excel, a variety of web based concepts and to accomplish standard sorts of tasks on a machine set up by someone else that is working properly.

By way of contrast, in CS 200 the emphasis is on

developing skills for learning new applications, and new application features, efficiently
developing skills for diagnosing and recovering from the minor ailments to which personal computers are so frequently subject
understanding what sort of regular user-level maintenance is necessary to avoid, or at least to minimize, crashes and lost data

There are also, of course, important application concepts that recur throughout the course (e.g. named styles, tables, relational databases, ...).

As a consequence, CS 200 has a different “feel” than CS 100:

written examinations are mostly comprised of essay questions that emphasize conceptual understanding;
there is no step-by-step lab workbook like that provided in CS 100 — the assignments instead provide general guidelines;
the end-of-term lab examination stresses the ability to figure out how to use a new feature or new application, rather than testing your ability to use a feature discussed during the term.

Labs and working at home

Four hours per week of supervised lab time is reserved for CS 200 students, and you should expect to spend several hours independently on each assignment. The lab machines are Macintoshes, but most of the applications used are available on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms, so many of the assignments can be done at home if you have your own PC.

Resist the temptation to work entirely at home, however — lab personnel need to interact with you to help you develop the methodologies for working efficiently with computers that are a central point of the course. There will also often be short presentations at the beginning of labs that deal with such conceptual issues, and provide guidelines on how to go about doing assignments efficiently.

Lectures

There are two 90 minute lectures each week. You may occasionally be tempted to skip them. Don’t! Copies of the lecture slides are posted on the course webpage the evening before each lecture, but they are nothing like a complete record of what’s covered, and there simply is no text that you can read in place of attending lecture. Also, it’s important to go over your lecture notes and the lecture material within a day or so of each lecture so as to fix the material in your mind and identify topics for which you need help.

Questions

Finally, if you take CS 200, ask a lot of questions. That’s the best way to make sure you’ve understood the material, and the best way for course personnel to find out what needs to be explained again.