ECE 3084: Engineering Computation III

ECE 3084: Engineering Computation III
Syllabus
Contact Information:

Lecture	MWF: 11:00 - 11:50 AM (ENGR 308)
Lecturer	Joseph Picone, Professor Office: ENGR 703A Office Hours: (MWF) 7:45 AM - 8:45 AM, 10:00 AM - 10:45 AM, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Phone: 215-204-4841 (desk); 215-954-7076 (cell - preferred) Email: picone@temple.edu Google Hangout: joseph.picone@gmail.com Skype: joseph.picone
Social Media	https://www.facebook.com/groups/temple.engineering.ece3084/ temple.engineering.ece3084@groups.facebook.com
Email	Google Group URL: http://groups.google.com/group/temple-engineering-ece3084 Google Group Email: temple-engineering-ece3084@googlegroups.com
Website	http://www.isip.piconepress.com/courses/temple/ece_3084
Textbook	Google Search :)
Reference Textbooks	This book, as the title suggests, is a good overview of the basics of Linux: E. Siever, S. Figgins, R. Love and A. Robbins Linux in a Nutshell, 1st Edition O'Reilly Media; Sixth Edition October 2009, 944 pages ISBN: 978-0596154486 URL: Linux in a Nutshell (6th Edition) This is an excellent introduction to Python: Mark Lutz Learning Python O'Reilly Media; Fifth Edition July 2013, 1648 pages URL: Learning Python This is a great book for learning about many data analysis tools available in most Python distributions: Wes McKinney Python for Data Analysis O'Reilly Media; First Edition July 2013, 550 pages URL: Python for Data Analysis
Other Reference Materials	Lynda.com: an online subscription library that teaches the latest software tools. Log in through the TU Portal. Free Linux Online Training: a wide range of Linux tutorials are available. LearnPython.org: many excellent interactive tutorials. Stack Overflow: where you can find answers to almost any programming question.
Prerequisites	C- or better in ECE 1111

Grading Policies:

Item	Weight
Exam No. 1	10%
Exam No. 2	10%
Exam No. 3	10%
Final Exam	10%
Homework Assignments	20%
Quizzes	20%
Project	20%
TOTAL:	100%

Catalog Course Description:

Electrical and computer engineers are increasingly interacting with the Internet as part of the technology development process. This requires a complex set of software skills that includes knowledge of operating systems and cloud computing, web programming and graphical user programming. Engineers today are also expected to participate in large software development projects that use integrated development environment tools to interact with Internet-based code repositories and agile development methodologies. In this project-based course, students will learn how to (1) work in a cloud-based environment using the Linux operating system, (2) develop complex software systems using object-oriented design in C++, (3) program using interpretive languages such as Python, (4) develop user interfaces and Internet-aware software using Python, and (5) manage complex software projects using contemporary tools such as GitHub and Taiga.

ABET Criteria:

See the course title page for a summary of the ABET criteria this course addresses. You can also view these here.

Course Overview:

With the advancement of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and app programming on portable devices, students often no longer learn the basics of computing. Whether your job is to manage vast amounts of data or mine information from the Internet to advance your understanding of a product or business, computers allow us to automate and solve problems of immense scale. However, to be effective at doing this, one must understand how computers work and how to program them effectively.

In this course, we will first focus on learning the basics of the Linux operating system. Linux is the dominant operating system for most compute intensive applications. Though a Linux desktop exists, we will focus mainly on learning about the shell and the command line. Some operating systems, such as a Mac, give you direct access to a terminal window as part of the OS (which is a modified version of Unix/Linux). For Windows users, we will install VirtualBox and Linux under VirtualBox. Please see the resources page for more information about this.

In the second part of the course, we will focus on learning C/C++ programming. Students are expected to be familiar with basic syntax. Our focus will be pointers, data structures, function calls, classes, and, most importantly, how you write good, clean, structured code. This will help you better appreciate some of the pros and cons of scripting languages such as Python.

In the third part of the course, we will focus on learning an emerging programming language known as Python. This is a useful language because it supports both interpretive and compiled modes. In the final part of the course we will learn a variety of software engineering tools and discuss strategies for decomposing large problems into a hierarchy of smaller ones.

We will have three in-class exams in this course and a comprehensive final. Each in-class exam will be closed books and notes. You will be allowed one page (double-sided) of notes for the in-class exams. For the final exam you will be allowed four pages of notes, presumably the same notes you used for the in-class exams.

Unannounced quizzes will be given periodically throughout the course to encourage you to attend lecture classes and keep up with the daily work. If you miss a quiz without a prior excuse from the instructor, you receive a zero for that quiz with no exception. Make-up quizzes will not be given. The same policy applies to in-class exams and the final exam as well.

This course will be very hands-on. A significant part of this course is a group project in which you will develop an application in Python that involves a user interface. You will practice agile programming techniques for this project and manage it using Taiga.

We will make extensive use of the Amazon Cloud. Students will work exclusively on a cloud server. Quizzes, exams and homework will be submitted directly on the cloud. Further instructions on this will be provided at the beginning of the semester.

Lecture Schedule:

The lecture component of ECE 3084 meets three times a week and will cover the following topics:

Class	Date	Topic(s)
01	01/14	Introduction to Macs, Clusters, Virtualization and Clouds
02	01/16	The Login Environment, Shells, Environment Variables
03	01/18	Command Line History, Pipes, Redirection, Regular Expressions
--	01/21	Martin Luther King Day - No Class
04	01/23	Files, File Systems and Permissions
05	01/25	Scripting and Bash Programming
06	01/28	Processes, Tasks and Batch Computing
07	01/30	Emacs, Text Editing, Program Development and IDEs
08	02/01	Disks, File Systems and I/O
09	02/04	Archiving, Backups and Syncing
10	02/06	C++: Classes
11	02/08	C++: C++ Examples
12	02/11	C++: Data Structures
13	02/13	Exam No. 1: The Linux Operating System and Shell Programming (Lectures 01-09)
14	02/15	C++: More About Data Structures
15	02/18	Review of C/C++ Data Types, Pointers, and Memory Management
16	02/20	Python: Basic Program Structure and Libraries
17	02/22	Python: Arrays, Lists and Other Useful Data Struct
18	02/25	Python: File I/O and Directory Traversal
19	02/27	Python: Classes and Object-Oriented Programming
20	03/01	Python: Unit Testing
--	03/04	Spring Break - No Class
--	03/06	Spring Break - No Class
--	03/08	Spring Break - No Class
21	03/11	Python: Introduction to IDEs (Spyder)
22	03/13	Python: Exception Handling
23	03/15	Multithreading and Parsing
24	03/18	Functional Programming: Map, Reduce and Filter
25	03/20	Functional Programming: Recursion
26	03/22	Exam No. 2: C++ Programming (Lectures 10 - 15)
27	03/25	Python: Graphing
28	03/27	Python: GUI Programming (I)
29	03/29	Python: GUI Programming (II)
30	04/01	Python: GUI Programming (III)
31	04/03	Git Concepts and Architecture (I)
32	04/05	Git Concepts and Architecture (II)
33	04/08	Git Concepts and Architecture (III)
34	04/10	Introduction to Web Development (I)
35	04/12	Introduction to Web Development (II)
36	04/15	Introduction to Web Development (III)
37	04/17	Agile Software Development
38	04/19	Dev Ops
39	04/22	Exam No. 3: Python (Lectures 16 - 30)
40	04/24	Introduction to Taiga (I)
41	04/26	Introduction to Taiga (II)
42	04/29	Final Presentations
43	05/06	Final Exam (08:00 AM - 10:00 AM): Comprehensive (Lectures 01 - 42)

Please note that the dates above are fixed since they have been arranged to optimize a number of constraints. If you have conflicts with other classes, such as too many exams within the same week, we need to resolve that the first week of classes.

Homework:

The homework schedule is as follows:

HW	Due Date	Item(s)
01	01/18	Command Line Programming
02	01/25	Text Processing
03	02/01	Shell Programming
04	02/08	File I/O
05	02/15	C++ Variables and Scope
06	02/22	Data Structures
07	03/01	Sparse Matrices
08	03/15	Python Scripting - Filename Processing
09	03/22	Python Scripting - Audio Processing
10	03/29	Python Scripting - Natural Language Processing
11	04/05	Python Practice
12	04/12	Map, Reduce and Filter
13	04/19	Find a Needle in a Haystack
14	04/26	Project Checkpoint No. 1
15	04/29	Project Checkpoint No. 2

LATE HOMEWORK WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Keeping up with the homework in this course is critical to your ability to absorb this material in a meaningful fashion.

Homework assignments are deposited on the Amazon AWS server in: /data/courses/ece_3084/current/homework/hw_XX/. More details about this will be given in class.

Additional Resources:

The course notes will include links to a variety of helpful resources.

University Policy Statements:

Accommodations & Resources: Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a documented disability, including special accommodations for access to technology resources and electronic instructional materials required for the course, should contact me privately (via email, Canvas, or phone) to discuss your specific situation by the end of the second week of classes, or as soon as is practical to do so. If you have not done so already, please contact Disability Resources & Services (DRS) at 215.204.1280 or visit the office in 100 Ritter Annex to learn more about the resources available to you. I will work with DRS to coordinate reasonable accommodations for all students with documented disabilities.

Further, please be aware that Temple University offers free and confidential to all students at Tuttleman Counseling Services (counseling.temple.edu, 215.204.7276). It is common for students to experience times of stress, depression, anxiety, amongst other mental wellness issues. If you need help, do not be afraid to ask - we are all here to support you during your college journey!

Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are 2 inseparable facets of academic freedom. The University has a policy on Student and Faculty and Academic Rights and Responsibilities (Policy #03.70.02) which can be accessed through the following link: http://policies.temple.edu/getdoc.asp?policy_no=03.70.02.

Please review the university's academic dishonesty policy Students who are caught plagiarizing or cheating will receive a grade of 0 on the corresponding assignment for a first offense. A second offense will result in failure of the course.