CS103: Mathematical Foundations of Computing

Spring 2012-13 Course Information

Announcements

• (April 8 9:30 AM) Future announcements will be posted on the Piazza forum. Some major announcements will be posted here and on Piazza. In any case, be sure to check the Course Calendar regularly.

• Class URL: The class webpage is http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs103 where all material will be posted.
• Lectures: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 12:50 PM - 2:05 PM in Hewlett 201
• Sections: Monday, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM in 380-380Y (Math Corner)
• Midterm: May 2 (Thursday), 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Location: 320-105
• Final: June 12 (Wednesday), 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM, Location: TBA
• Instructor: Prof. David Dill (dill AT cs.stanford.edu). Office: Gates 344; Phone: 725-3642; OH: Wednesday 3:30 - 5:30
• Administrative Assistant: Mary Jane Swenson (mswenson AT cs.stanford.edu). Office: Gates 279; Phone: 723-0748
• Course Assistants:
  • Sunyoung Baek (sbaek@stanford.edu)
  • Kyle Brogle (broglek@stanford.edu)
  • Justin Heermann (justinlh@stanford.edu)
  • Jeff Jacobs (jjacobs3@stanford.edu)
  • Kedar Soparkar (kedars@stanford.edu)
  • Remington Wong (rwong2@stanford.edu)
  • Ellery Wulczyn (ewulczyn@stanford.edu)
• Sections & Office Hours:
  
• Prerequisites: CS106A. CS103 is not a programming class. We only require some programming knowledge because we like to use examples from programming, and we appeal to intuition from programming, like data structures, in explaining some of the material.
• Questions and help:
  • There will be lots of office hours, especially before homeworks are due. Please use them.
  • Unless there is a very good reason to contact a specific person, please address email questions to the cs103-spr1213-staff@lists.stanford.edu. It helps us and increases the chance that you'll get a timely response.
  • We will have regular problem sessions on Monday evenings from 7 PM to 8:30 PM (starting April 8) in 380-380Y (Math Corner). These sessions are not required but are highly recommended. We will discuss problem-solving in more detail, and interactively work through problems similar to those on the homeworks. Monday May 27 is Memorial Day, so we'll have the problem session on Tuesday evening, May 28 that week.
• Textbooks: There is no textbook required for the class. The lecture notes and other notes we put online will be sufficient. If you want more to read, there are two recommended books, which are available in the Stanford Bookstore, although you can get them anywhere that sells them (of course). The first part will be based on Chapter 1 only of "Discrete Mathematics and its Applications", sixth edition, by Kenneth R. Rosen. The second textbook is "Introduction to the Theory of Computation" by Michael Sipser. Either the 2nd or 3rd edition.
• Grading: There will be weekly homeworks, a midterm, and a final exam. Grades will be based upon Homeworks (60%), Midterm (15%), and Final (25%). During exams, students may use all the material we post or distribute (including lecture notes, course notes, and solutions), recommended texts, and their own notes and homework solutions, but no other materials. Students may not use the internet or collaborate with others, electronically or in any other way, during exams.
• Homeworks: There will be weekly homeworks that will be posted on the web page. Homeworks must be handed in by the beginning of the lecture when they are due. If you want to hand them in earlier, you can drop them off in the CS103 submission cabinet on the first floor of Gates (near Gates 182). Late homeworks will not be accepted unless you are sick or injured, or something of that ilk. However, the lowest homework grade will not be considered in the grades computation. Graded homeworks will usually be returned at the end of class on the first Wednesday, following the day on which the homeworks were due. Alternatively, you can pick up your graded homework from the CS103 bin, next to the CS103 submission cabinet, on the first floor of Gates (near Gates 182).
• Regrade Requests: Regrade requests for the homeworks should be submitted to the TAs during office hours or be dropped off in the CS103 submission cabinet on the first floor of Gates (near Gates 182). The deadline for submitting regrade requests is the first Monday at 12:50 PM, following the day on which the graded homeworks were returned in class.
• Challenge problems: Occasionally, we will propose challenge problems for students who are interested. Although each challenge problem submission is scored between 0 and 5, the problem is not actually worth a fixed number of extra credit points. Instead, good scores on challenge problems are only taken into account when computing final grades for students who have already earned an A through other means. In other words, good challenge problem submissions will only help raise a student's final grade from A to A+. It would be a strategic error for students to spend significant time on these problems at the expense of thoroughly understanding the basic material.
• Honor Code and Collaboration: It should go without saying that you must comply with Stanford's honor code. Please, let's have no more articles like this: New York Times

Our policies about collaboration and use of materials are intended to promote our most important goal, which is that you learn the concepts and skills of the course well. The other, closely related goal, is that we be able to assess reasonably accurately how well the first goal was met.

The primary way that you learn this material is by working problems on homeworks (and the studying that you have to do to be able to work those problems). The problems give practice, help you understand your comprehension of the material, and (importantly) the creative part of problem solving helps you to remember and appreciate that material.

So, only limited collaboration is allowed on homeworks. You should first try to work through them by yourself, thoroughly and carefully. Of course, Prof. Dill and the course assistants will be available to you if you are stuck or want to know if there is a better way to solve a problem. It's ok to discuss problems with others, but please make sure you are doing your best to solve them yourself. In particular, do not copy solutions. If you're looking at someone's answer as you write yours, you are violating this rule (if you have an eidetic memory, try not to use it).

Another way to undermine the value of homework problems is to look up answers on the internet, find answers in other textbooks, copy answers from homeworks from previous classes at Stanford or elsewhere, etc. Don't do these things. If you use material from sources other than the lectures, office hours, or course textbooks to understand a problem better, write down what you used and how you used it in your homework solutions. Any assistance received (both from human and from inanimate sources) that is not given proper citation may be considered a violation of the Honor Code.

In any case, you are responsible for understanding and being able to explain all of the statements in your assignments and examinations. Solutions must be written up independently of other students.

• Lecture Videos: We will be using the class2go platform to host lecture videos. Links to the videos can be found in the course calendar below. Alternatively, the entire list of CS103 videos can be perused at https://class2go.stanford.edu/CS103/Spring2013/videos. We are using a tiny camcorder borrowed from the CS department to record the lectures, and while the quality appears acceptable, be warned that it's nothing like SCPD. We have had issues with the camcorder in the past and have lost entire lectures, and while we will do our best, there is no guarantee that all lectures will be recorded and posted. Try to attend the lectures in person as far as possible!
• Piazza: We will be using Piazza for fielding student doubts and questions. Please join the course at https://piazza.com/stanford/spring2013/cs103.
• Supplementary Material:
  • Grade Book
  • Keith Schwarz's Course Notes for the first half of CS103.
  • First-order Logic Review session notes.
  • Sample Midterm
  • Sample Midterm Solutions
  • Midterm Solutions (WebAuth Authentication Required)
  • DFA/NFA Developer (for Homework 5)
  • Regex Developer (for Homework 5)

Course Calendar

This schedule is subject to change. Please check it frequently.