Objectives

The aim of this course is to familiarise you with a number of principles, concepts and techniques from computer science. The principles you will learn include how to construct code that's easy to read, understand and modify. The concepts you will learn include abstract data types and object-oriented programming. The techniques you will learn include how to build data structures, such as lists and trees, and algorithms for certain common tasks, such as lookup and sorting.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Design architecture of a complex software problem;
• Appreciate the environment, tools, programming languages needed for a software project
• Construct good software codes to tackle reasonably large problems;
• Effectively conduct code review on other people's code;
• Use OOP techniques effectively;
• Write efficient code with good appreciation of the issue of complexity and scalability;
• Write codes that are easy to read, well documented and easy to change and maintain in the future.

Textbook & Key References

• Problem Solving with C++, 5 th Edition, Walter Savitch, Addison Wesley, ISBN: 0321269756, 2004 (£40.84).
• Code Complete , Steve McConnell, Microsoft Press, ISBN: 0735619670 (£25.84).
• C++ Tutorial (free on the web)

Lecture Notes & Support Material

Week	Notes	Other material
1	Lecture 1 - Introduction	C++ Tutorial 1 & 2 (PDF 1 & 2)
2	Lecture 2 - More C++	C++ Tutorial 5 & 6 (PDF 5 & 6) Exercise A & sudoku001.txt (Solution A)
3	Lecture 3 - How to write a good routine?	C++ Tutorial 3 & 4 (PDF 3 & 4 ) Exercise B & ExerciseB.cpp (Solution B)
4	Lecture 4 - Classes & Pointers	C++ Tutorial 8 & 15 (PDF 8 & 15 )
5	Lecture 5 - Linked Lists	Exercise C & source from lecture
6	Lecture 6 - Ordered Lists	Exercise D Assessed Assignment 1 C++ Tutorial 19 (PDF 19)
7	Lecture 7 - Recursion Lecture 8 - More List Processing
8	Lecture 9 - Binary Trees	Assessed Assignment 2
9	Lecture 10 - Parsing & Expression Evaluation
10	Lecture 11 - Parse Trees

Useful links

• Borland C++ Builder Reference Website - The best reference site I know! You are expected to learn C++ using the free tutorial on this site.
• Liam Madden's Self-taught course on C++ for Engineers - This has many exercises for you to do.
• Pascal & C++ Side by Side by Maria Litvin - Excellent cross reference between Pascal and C++, particularly good for someone already an expert in Pascal.
• Quick Language Reference Cards - This site has a quick summary reference card for almost any language you can think of, including C++.
• Borland's own C++ Builder support site.
• Extreme Programming - More useful for very large program development projects in industry than for this course.