Goals for the first week of this class:

• General overview of the class, its structure and mission, and the kinds of things that we will be seeing and doing
• Review/introduction of abstract data types and linear data structures. In particular, by Friday 10 Sept you should be pretty comfortable with implementing, using, describing tradeoffs among:
  • Arrays
  • Linked Lists
  • Collection ADT (Insert, Member?, Delete)
  • Stack ADT (Push, Top, Pop)
  • Queue ADT (Enqueue, Front, Dequeue)
• Introduction of orders of growth, O, Theta, Omega
  • Be able to analyze the data structures and ADTs listed above
• Basic Scheme programming
  • Be able to implement basic lisp programs including the above data structures/ADTs

Scheme references:

See also ResourcesOnScheme with an itemized listing of chapter/topic correspondence

• Dr Scheme (download this environment. We should build a wiki page on getting started with Dr Scheme.)

  • Already exists -- see DrschemeInstructions

• Books (good references):

  • Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs is a masterpiece, definitely worth owning for the serious computer scientist, overkill for our use (but I'd love for everyone to read it anyway). Fully available on the web! (AKA the Wizard book)

  • How to Design Programs is beautiful, though I don't personally know it as well as SICP. HTDP is also available online, though -- like SICP -- also worth purchasing if it's the kind of thing you like to own (or read on paper). Again, overkill for this course, but not necessarily for your life.

  • Dybvig's book is also good but more advanced/referency.

  • Teach yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days by Dorai Sitaram. No opinion yet, but I like the joke. This is also included in DrScheme (help -> helpdesk -> program design).

• (brief) tutorials; no endorsement implied:

  • http://www.cs.wcu.edu/~bubak/scheme/basic.html

  • http://cs.wwc.edu/~cs_dept/KU/PR/Scheme.html

  • http://www.cs.hut.fi/Studies/T-93.210/schemetutorial/schemetutorial.html