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<h1> UMBC CMSC 201 Resources</h1>
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<table width=100% bgcolor=#33CCFF><tr><td><h2> About 201</h2></td></tr></table>

<p>

Here are some resources that are specific to CMSC 201 at UMBC.

<ul>
 <LI>  <a href="/courses/undergraduate/201/index.html"> Past 201 pages </a>
 <LI>  <a href="administrivia/general.shtml"> General help </a>
</ul>

<p><p>

<table width=100% bgcolor=#33CCFF><tr><td><h2>Computer Science</h2></td></tr></table>
<p>

Here are some resources to help you get a better picture of
Computer Science as a field and well as the sometimes
peculiar culture that has grown up around it.  Part of the
enjoyment and satisfaction of mastering a discipline is
mastering its the arcane secrets and inside jokes.

      <ul>
        <li> The <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/"> Jargon file</a> is 
          a glossary of hacker slang that has been evolving on the internet and 
          elsewhere since the mid 70's. If you want to know if you CAR has a CDR, 
          you can find out here. </li>
      </ul>

<p><p>

<table width=100% bgcolor=#33CCFF><tr><td><h2>Unix</h2></td></tr></table>

<p> You will have to use Unix in 201 and other CMSC courses here at UMBC.  
Learning how to use it, and how it works, is also an important part of 
your education as a computer scientist.

      <ul>
        <li><a href="http://www.cs.umbc.edu/%7Ecshc/resources/new_student/unix_commands.shtml">Basic 
          UNIX Commands</a> - This is a very basic page of UNIX commands, such 
          as how to copy, rename, delete, list contents of directories,change 
          directories, print files, display files, change your password, get additional 
          help using the man pages, and more.</li>
        <li> <a href="http://www.umbc.edu/oit/sans/helpdesk/Unix/index.html">Unix 
          at UMBC</a> - This includes ... some getting started information, coverage 
          of unix commands, file processing, printing, environment customizing, 
          use of Pine for email, and text editor coverage of Emacs, Pico &amp; 
          Vi.</li>
        <li><a href="http://www.gl.umbc.edu/submit/">Submit Documentation</a> 
          - Pages on the UMBC submit utility care of University Computing Services.</li>
        <li>The UMBC <a href="http://lug.umbc.edu/">Linux Users Group</a> is an 
          organization of and for people who use or would like to use Linux. UMBC-LUG 
          members come from all walks of life and courses of study (membership 
          is not limited to UMBC students). If you are interested in becoming 
          a member of UMBC-LUG, just come to a meeting and check it out.</li>
      </ul>
<table width=100% bgcolor=#33CCFF><tr><td><h2>C </h2></td></tr></table>

<p> 

Being able to turn ideas into working programs is an
essential aspect of computer science.  During your career as
a Computer Scientist you will probably master a number of
programming languages.  But you will always remember the
first with great fondness.  Dig in.

      <ul>
        <li><a
href="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html"> The Development of the 
          C Language</a> Dennis M. Ritchie, Second History of Programming Languages 
          conference, Cambridge, Mass., April, 1993. Abstract: The C programming 
          language was devised in the early 1970s as a system implementation language 
          for the nascent Unix operating system. Derived from the typeless language 
          BCPL, it evolved a type structure; created on a tiny machine as a tool 
          to improve a meager programming environment, it has become one of the 
          dominant languages of today. This paper studies its evolution. Comment: 
          The designer of C tells how it came to be.</li>
        <li><a href="http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html"> comp.lang.c FAQ</a> 
          These are frequently asked questions about C from the <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet">usenet</a> newsgroup <a
href="http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.c">comp.lang.c</a>. You can 
          learn a lot about C by reading this.</li>
        <li> Print the <a
href="http://refcards.com/refcards/c/c-refcard-letter.pdf">C Reference Card</a> 
          double sided, fold it, and keep it in your purse or wallet. It will 
          come in handy. Caution: don't let your non-CMSC major friends see you 
          with it, though. They won't understand. </li>
      </ul>

<p><p>

<table width=100% bgcolor=#33CCFF><tr><td><h2>EMACS</h2></td></tr></table>

<p> 
We expect you to use the emacs text editor for 201.
      <ul>
        <li>This <a href="http://refcards.com/refcards/gnu-emacs/emacs-refcard-letter.pdf">Gnu 
          Emacs reference card</a> when printed double sided and folded will come 
          in handy. If you are using the <a href="http://refcards.com/refcards/xemacs/xemacs-refcard-letter.pdf">Xemacs</a> 
          varienty, there is a custom card for that.</li>
        <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs">Wikipedia articl</a>e 
          on emacs.</li>
        <li>The CS Help Center has an <a href="http://www.csee.umbc.edu/%7Ecshc/resources/new_student/emacs.shtml">Emacs 
          Guide </a></li>
        <li>You can run Emacs on your own computer. The two main varieties of 
          emacs are <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html">GNU 
          Emacs</a> and <a href="http://www.xemacs.org/">XEmacs</a>, both of which 
          are very good and each has its advocates. These can be installed on 
          your hoe computer under Windows, Linux or Mac OS X.</li>
        <li>Emacs tutorial</li>
      </ul>

<p> </p>
<table width=100% bgcolor=#33CCFF><tr><td><h2>Recommended articles, essays, papers 
              &amp; books</h2></td></tr></table>

      <p> Here are some articles and books on different computer science topics 
        that are worth reading. Some are classic papers from the past. These are 
        well written and introduced and explained important concepts to the field. 
        Trust us, you will be a better computer scientist for having read (and 
        thought about) them. Others are provocative articles that will challenge 
        your ideas and make you think about your field and how it will evolve. 
        Sill others are book, including novels, that we hope you will find stimulating. 
      <ul>
        <li> <a href="">Go To Statement Considered Harmful</a>, Edsger W. Dijkstra, 
          Communications of the ACM, Vol. 11, No. 3, March 1968, pp. 147-148. 
          For a number of years I have been familiar with the observation that 
          the quality of programmers is a decreasing function of the density of 
          go to statements in the programs they produce. More recently I discovered 
          why the use of the go to statement has such disastrous effects, and 
          I became convinced that the go to statement should be abolished from 
          all &quot;higher level&quot; programming languages (i.e. everything 
          except, perhaps, plain machine code). At that time I did not attach 
          too much importance to this discovery; I now submit my considerations 
          for publication because in very recent discussions in which the subject 
          turned up, I have been urged to do so.</li>
        <li><a href="http://www.acm.org/classics/dec95/">Program Development by 
          Stepwise Refinement</a>, Niklaus Wirth Reprinted from Communications 
          of the ACM, Vol. 14, No. 4, April 1971, pp. 221-227. Abstract: The creative 
          activity of programming - to be distinguished from coding - is usually 
          taught by examples serving to exhibit certain techniques. It is here 
          considered as a sequence of design decisions concerning the decomposition 
          of tasks into subtasks and of data into data structures. The process 
          of successive refinement of specifications is illustrated by a short 
          but nontrivial example, from which a number of conclusions are drawn 
          regarding the art and the instruction of programming. Comment: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth"> 
          Niklaus Wirth</a> is a famous computer scientist who designed a number 
          of important and influential programming languages, including Pascal 
          and Mudula. This paper is important to the early days of <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering">software engineering</a> 
          and first articulated the basic ideas of top-down design of computer 
          programs. 
        <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning...was_the_Command_Line">In 
          the Beginning...was the Command Line</a> is a lengthy essay by cyberpunk 
          author Neal Stephenson. 
        <li> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=ebiquity-20&amp;path=tg%2Fdetail%2F-%2F0596006624"> 
          Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age</a>, Paul Graham, 
          2004. &quot;We are living in the computer age, in a world increasingly 
          designed and engineered by computer programmers and software designers, 
          by people who call themselves hackers. Who are these people, what motivates 
          them, and why should you care?&quot; </ul>

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<font size=-1>Saturday, 12-Feb-2005 11:25:22 EST</font>
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