Syllabus of a sort¶

Goals¶

Intended goal:

to provide actionable foundations for Computer Science that can be explained with clarity
to put everyone at a level where they can fruitfully attend the modules that list Intro to CS as a prerequisite, including FPP
to be useful to attendees who were already exposed to “coding”
to be useful to attendees who “never wrote a line of code in their life”
to synergize with everyone’s liberal arts and science education, including the scientific method

Unintended goal:

Unexpected goals:

to provide common-curriculum content
to effectively prepare attendees to fruitfully attend modules at the School of Computing

Material:

a well-designed programming language (OCaml)
a well-designed editor (Emacs) that makes it possible to edit at the speed of thought
progressive and self-contained lecture notes

Rationale:

the Great Equalizer: none of the attendees already know OCaml, so everybody can start on the same footing
the very designs of OCaml and Emacs make it possible to progress logically
the self-contained lecture notes mean that there is only one place to learn from: a firm place on which to put the OCaml and Emacs dual lever to lift the world of computing (yay for Archimedes!)

Aristotle’s four causes are relevant (cf. the college’s motto)
soundness and completeness of data and of computations
program processors (interpreters, compilers)
programs as data objects (the halting problem, Kleene’s S-m-n function)
connection with linguistics: grammars, abstract-syntax trees
connection with mathematics: proof trees, logic, types
incomplete testing as proving the presence of bugs, not their absence (Dijkstra), and complete testing as proving the absence of bugs
code coverage
induction and recursion as two sides of the same yin-yang diagram
lexical scope
observational equivalence and computational effects
evaluation order, parameter passing
computational costs: time and space
correctness first, efficiency later
demand-driven computation
concrete and abstract data types
modules
imperative programming
being methodical and expressing oneselves with clarity

Objectively:

go from what is known towards what is unknown (yet) – so, no forward references and no name dropping
50% testing & programming, 50% writing, 100% Computer Science: our narrative reflects our understanding
third-person viewpoint through archetypal dialogues
first-person viewpoint through reading the dialogues in class
a variety of exercises and mini-projects to reinforce one’s learning (“it is useful because we keep reusing it”)
live coding: everything is doable by each attendee
group work to enable discussions and to increase the quality of feeback

Subjectively:

the knowledge is snowballing as the semester unfolds
a safe space where one can learn from one’s beginner’s mistakes, without penalty
patience, availability, reactivity, intellectual respect, encouragement, esteem, enabling, empowerment

Updated [21 Jan 2023]

Created [10 Jan 2023]