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Lecture 0, Mon 01/04

Introduction to CS156

https://ucsb-cs156.github.io/w21/lectures/lect00

The course website

Here: https://ucsb-cs156.github.io

Note the two parts:

Also note the Calendar where you can keep track of things that are due: <>

Where is the syllabus?

Here:

My special passion: Teaching real world software practice

Why is this course different from all other courses?

Because as a young software developer I saw a gap between what I learned in school, and what i needed in industry.

Getting Started With Java Programming

The first programming assignment is here: https://ucsb-cs156.github.io/w21/lab/jpa00/

It is an autograded assignment; you’ll submit via Gradescope. It’s pretty straightforward; you should be able to complete it by the end of the week.

Homework for Tuesday, and next Monday

Reading in the Textbook (reading for H00 due Friday).

This homework assignment due Friday is based on:

Online links to the textbooks—note that you MUST first be on the UCSB VPN for these to work.

Homework H00 due Friday

https://ucsb-cs156.github.io/w21/hwk/h00

Next week’s reading assignment (for Tuesday 01/12)

What will we learn in this class:

Two halves:

Legacy Applications: They existed before this course started, and will continue to exist in the future.

Logistics

Where can you find info in this class?

Before we pivot to our team activity

The team activity we have planned for today involved using the course Slack, and it is still my hope that we’ll proceed with that plan.

However, as of 10am on the day of this lecture, slack was reporting some problems: (https://status.slack.com/).

If Slack is still not working for us when we get to today’s assignment, there’s a backup plan at the bottom of this page (use this ONLY if Slack is down). Scroll down to it if it’s needed.

Now we meet our first team

We’ll go into breakout rooms and you’ll meet the first team you’ll be working with during the course.

Teams are by discussion section; there are three discussion sections, and 4 teams per discussion section.

Team assignments, and the mapping from teams to staff (LAs/TAs) is listed here:

Note that while the instructor, or a TA or LA might drop in on your Breakout Room, they are not the discussion leader. You need to self-organize to run your own breakout room discussion.

What to do in your breakout room

  1. Please choose someone to be the discussion leader, and someone else to be the scribe. Note that you’ll be asked to rotate these roles each time we have a session, so that everyone gets a chance to practice their leadership skills and their writing skills.

    You could also choose to rotate the scribe during the session; that’s up to you. Stick with one discussion leader for today though, to make things less confusing. (of course if your discussion leader loses their internet connection half way through class, you’ll have to improvise.)

  2. Everyone log in to the Slack in another window (Zoom open in one window, slack in another.)

    Everyone find the Slack channel for your team. It will have a name such as team-6pm-b. Everyone on the team join that channel, and introduce yourself with a post.

    The post should include

    • (a) The name you like to be called
    • (b) Your pronouns (e.g. she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs)
    • (c) Your year in school
    • (d) The time zone you are in (e.g. Pacific (UTC-8), Eastern (UTC-5), China (UTC+8), etc.)
    • (e) Something interesting about yourself (this may be unrelated to Computing)
    • (f) Something you are hoping to learn in this course

    Completing this step earn you 60% of the participation points for today’s class, and you earn those as an individual. (This part can be made up later.)

    The remaining 40% comes as a “group grade” when your group completes the questions below (note that you must be present in class to earn this part.)

  3. The person who is the scribe should:
    • Find the Slack channel for the team
    • “share their screen”, so that everyone else can see what they are typing.

    The scribe should record who the discussion leader is for the group, and whether you are sticking with one scribe, or rotating for each question. Just make a post in your group’s slack channel with this information.

  4. The discussion leader should give everyone time to find the slack channel, and make their first post.

    Then, ask the following questions of the group. The scribe can record the group’s answers.

    Each of these is worth 10% towards your group’s particpation grade for today’s activity. The discussion leader should note that there are five questions, so be sure to allocate the time appropriately, and move on to the next question as needed.

    • Question 1: Every team is a group of people, but not every group of people functions as a team.

      Think about when you’ve been part of a successful team. As a group, identify at least three things that are true of a team that functions well. You could probably identify many more, but for today, stop at three so you have time for the remaining questions.

    • Question 2: There are a variety of dimensions of “success” for a team.

      One dimension is the “outcome” of what they produce, e.g. do they win the game, or make the product, etc.

      Another dimension is the “process” by which they accomplish that. That dimension includes aspects such as:

      • the way in which the team members work together either in harmony, or in conflict,
      • whether there is an equitable sharing of the workload or one that feels inequitable
      • whether team members feel safe and respected, or unsafe and disrespected

      Identify three things that your team in this course might do to ensure good process, without sacrificing the quality of the “outcome”. (These might or might not overlap with your answers to question 1; it’s ok if they do, but try to think about it from a different perspective. Question 1 is more about memories of past successful teams, while this question is more about looking forward to what you’ll do with this team and any other temas are you are part of in CMPSC 156.)

    • Question 3: On a team, there are often people with different levels of prior experience and knowledge for the given task. Your team likely has different levels of prior experience, knowledge, and current skill level with in a variety of areas, such as Java, JavaScript, git, GitHub, databases, HTML, CSS, and Agile just to name a few topics.

      Those varying levels of experience can be a stumbling block, but they don’t have to be.

      Think of three challenges that might arise because of differnet levels of experience.

    • Question 4: Now, for each of the challenges you listed above, come up with a strategy that a team could use to address that challenge, and put the team on the path to success.

If time remains, here’s what to do with it

If you complete these four questions, with the time remaining, you are invited to discuss with one another your prior experience with these technologies, and record some of that discussion in your Slack channel.

It’s totally fine if you have no experience with any of these things. Success in this course is defined by learning, which is the change between where you start and where you end up at the end of the course. So, don’t worry about comparing yourself to others and feeling like you don’t belong.

We ask because the staff can construct a better learning experience for everyone if we know where people are starting.

Which of these areas are ones where you have some prior experience, and which are areas where you are a complete beginner?

What are you most interested to learn in this course?

Record as much of your conversation as you are able in the Slack channel

BACKUP PLAN IF SLACK IS DOWN (only to used if slack is down)