The second course in computer programming

Abstract

In recent years a number of colleges and universities have modified their introductory computer science curriculum. These schools have concluded that algorithm development and computer programming are sufficiently difficult to require a two semester sequence. This change even appears in the working report of the ACM Committee on Curriculum in Computer Sciences [1]. Unlike the first course in computer science, there does not appear to be a general consensus on the aims, objectives, and course outline on this second course. The purpose of this paper is to present the author's view of the need for and purpose of this second course and some consequences of these. This view is based on five years experience developing and teaching this course at two universities.

Awakening Rip Van Winkle

“…CSS coverage in reported AWOC courses is often quite minimal [2,22,36]. While basic text formatting in CSS is indeed quite straightforward, real world CSS, which is commonly used as well for positioning and layout, is notoriously difficult to master due to browser bugs, incompatibilities, and non-obvious CSS box model interactions [41].…”

“…Web vulnerabilities/security is another vital web topic that can be difficult to comprehensively cover using the AWOC approach (see [22] for an exception). Security in general is a very large topic, and many of the more important general issues and concepts are likely to be covered in a dedicated networking course.…”

Integrating software engineering into an intermediate programming class

“…Projects can motivate the need for userfriendly software as well as the need for user manuals and good documentation for future program maintainers [13,15]. This is especially effective if future classes or some other group will make use of the programs produced by the class.…”