The Daily Handout

Welcome to the home page for Computer Science II at Leander High School! This will provide you with information about what is going on in class for any given day, as well as programming assignments, examples, and more! This environmentally friendly page reduces the number of handouts I have to make, allows us to spend more time programming (and less time with me having to explain and re-explain things), is more attractive and faster to use than regular paper, and is made out of 100% recycled electrons.

The Plan For Today

We're going to look at linked lists. Sorry I don't have anything written up for this.

A clever little exercise about pointers. (If I do say so myself...)

We're going to be talking briefly about UIL computer science competition. There's a practice meet this Saturday. In C++. It'll be fun.

We'll continue work on the C-string/pointer programs. I'd like everyone to be finished by the end of the period. Or sooner if it's humanly possible.

In his continuing quest to be the most evil teacher that has ever lived, Mr. Mitchell requires his students to complete their next program using only candy conversation hearts.

I hope you guys had a nice five-day weekend. I know I did. Learned a lot of new ways to be evil. Professional development is *great*.

I've got a survey I'd like you guys to fill out for me. It'll only take a couple of minutes, and it helps out colleges quite a bit. Also, I'm supposed to be polling you guys about the AP testing schedule.

Keep going on the C-string/pointer programs from last time. I'm going to try and explain things on the board again to make your lives easier.

Leander ISD Continuous Improvement Conference

Some reflections: the standards next year are going to be much higher than this year. I have seen what this class can become, and I'm going for it. Computer programming is not for everyone, but those who are cut out for it will learn a lot.

I'm told that most schools don't teach the second year of the computer science course under the International Baccalaureate program, because it is so difficult. But we will, because I'm cool that way. And I might find only five or six students a year who can handle it.

Unfortunately, my object-oriented programming skills are a bit weak right now. I'm going to try to brush up a lot over the summers and maybe even go back to the University and take a couple of classes that never did fit into my schedule. Much programming.

One thing I've learned - don't be afraid to scrap the whole system in favor of a better design. Don't waste time optimizing a flawed model. Because optimizing can only improve twofold, or threefold. But a completely new paradigm can often improve performance by an order of magnitude. Or occasionally two. There will be a lot of scrap this year.

To start off, a brief quiz. On pointers. I'm feeling quite wicked.

Then we'll talk more about them, and I have a practice program for you.

Notice my new after-school computer lab hours posted outside.

I'm available at other times by appointment. Or just come looking for me. We'll talk.

Um... pointers or something.

I think we're going to vote about what to talk about.

Today is definitely the last day on the money management/checkbook programs. See the web page for final clarification about what they are supposed to be able to do.

Coming soon: classes. Structs with an attitude.

I still don't know anything more about exactly when and where Paul Steed will be speaking. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Finishing up money management programs, and maybe talking about mouse code.

Ask me about our new colored cards.

It is clear to me that the end of the world is coming when the Spice Girls^TM win three categories at the music awards.

We are going to talk a bit more about structs and then start a new program to give us some more practice with them.

Continue working on the fraction calculator from before. It will be due at the end of the period. However, if everybody gets done early, I reserve the right to start covering more material.

And that's all I can think of at the moment.

Continue working on your calculator for complex numbers. I'll go over how to handle multiplication (FOIL), and we can talk some about division.

You know, it might be easier to change our calculator to work with fractions instead of complex numbers. It teaches the concepts just as well, and you dont have to think so much about i.

...

(minutes later)

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I prefer the idea of making a fraction calculator instead. Would you all shoot me if we switched it to that?

So for the fraction calculator, I think it would be much better to just start a new program completely from scratch. Don't reuse or attempt to modify any of the Complex stuff, just start again. Trust me on this one.

More structures. Some functions to operate on them.

Today... structures. Oh, my...

Today... some housekeeping and picking up a bunch of loose ends on functions. Scope and visibility. Local variables, global variables, and prototyping.

(And in retrospect, we talked basically a bit about pointers, and how they relate to arrays, and about parameter passing (pass by reference and pass by value) and finally about return types and why they don't change their parameters and what they're really good for.)

Welcome back!

Ask me about my grading policy.

I'll explain everything else as we go.

Merry Christmas!

Blah.

Progress reports are in. Remind me to hand them out. And to take attendance.

Keep working on Rings of the Magi. And don't read the following digression.

Warning: the following account does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the faculty and staff of Leander High School or Leander Independent School District. It is just my viewpoint, such as it is. Skipping this story will not adversely affect your grade in any way, nor will any reaction you may have to it. Read at your own risk.

A couple of days ago, I made a remark in one of my classes that I had passed college because I was a "freaking genius". I have to apologize for this, it was not true nor appropriate.

The real story is (honestly) that I passed many of my classes because God allowed me to. There were several times where I went into a final with far less than a passing grade but somehow passed anyway.

There was the class where I had only turned in one of the six projects that were due all year (each worth about 15% of my grade) and still passed.

There was the class where I hadn't done any homework all year (which was 10% of my grade) and I still made an A.

There was the class where I made an 84. Grades above that ranged from 87 to 95 or so. The next lowest grade was an 82. The professor gave me an A.

And there were so many more than I could ever recall.

The only common factor in all this is that for each of these situations, my mother prayed for me. She prayed specifically that I would make an A in one class, that I would pass another, etc.

James 5:16 says that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. My mother is a righteous woman, and she prays for me.

I never understood why God allowed me to pass many times even when I didn't deserve to. After all, it's not very fair to the other students. But now I understand that He did it so that I could end up here now. Teaching. And I'm only doing it because He told me to teach here.

So honestly I passed because I'm trying to do God's will as much as I understand it. Because it is His will that I teach here right now, He allowed me to pass.

And if I have any intelligence at all, it is because He has given it to me. So I have to give credit where credit is due.

Thanks, God. I love this job.

And, incidentally, Quake 2 went gold on Monday, 1 Dec 97 at approximately 3:45pm CST. According to Activision, it should be in stores on Tuesday, December 9.

I'm currently working on an explanation of functions for the C++ Toolbox. I'm also almost done with my own version of Rings of the Magi. I may have starter code for those of you who need it. Maybe.

The Fremen were supreme in that trait the ancients called Spannungsbogen - which is the self-imposed delay between the desire for a thing and the reaching out to grasp that thing.

- Frank Herbert, in Dune

I've gotten a couple more tutorial pages added to the C++ Toolbox, for loops, switch statements, and reading from/writing to files.

Continue working on the Rings of the Magi assignment. I think we need to do a few example programs working with files.

I want each group to give me a list of who's in the group and who is taking care of what part of the assignment by the end of the period.

These daily entries sure aren't very long.

Remind me to hand out report cards. And take attendance.

I have more formalized the specifications for the latest programming project. Be sure and look at them.

Oh, and my voice still hasn't quite recovered yet.

I seem to have a touch of laryngitis, by which I mean any condition which results in inflammation of the larynx (voice box). So I won't be speaking very much today.

Keep working on the "program" we've been working on.

And that's about it.

I have your six weeks final grades for you, if you'd like to see them. However, I can't actually discuss them with you right now.

Just to remind you: a Mr. Mitchell without a voice is better than no Mr. Mitchell at all.

Continue working on the rainfall data program. Let's get it done by 10:45.

Then we'll review for the test.

Continue working on the rainfall data program. Looks like the end of the period deadline is still in effect.

Hey, look! Web page! Hopefully I'll be able to handle doing two of these at a time.

Remind me to talk to you about grades for the Mastermind project.

If I ever have comments to tell a specific student, I will place a file called "README - from Mr Mitchell" in your user directory (the G: drive). So you should check and see if I have anything to say to you. It's almost like winning the lottery! Once you've read it, you can delete it if you like. Or rename it to something else if you want to keep it; I occasionally go through and delete all the ones with the original name.

In case you were wondering about my schedule, or wanted to come in outside of class for some tutoring or to catch up, I've posted that information.

Everyone has until 10:40 to finish the clown nose database from last time. I will then grade whatever you have completed.

There is a new program, which will be due at the end of the period on Monday, unless it turns out to be considerably harder than I think it is.

Oh, and this page is accessible from the Internet, at http://lhs.leander.isd.tenet.edu/cs/cs2/index.html. Now you can work on your programs from home if you want.

A story

There were two lab partners, Billy Smith and Christy Jones, both submitting papers to the Board of Medical Examiners.

Christy Jones' paper contained the following response:

It was clear from the test results that the patient had had the flu for quite some time, and that it was not a recent illness as he had claimed.

Billy Smith's paper gave the same account in this manner:

A blood test revealed that the patient had the flu for several months, and thus his claim that he had only recently developed symptoms was unlikely.

The examiners marked Smith's paper lower, due to incorrect grammar ("had the flu", in contrast to Jones' correct "had had the flu"). When asked to justify why Smith had been given a different score, a colleague explained:

"Smith, where Jones had had 'had had', had had 'had'; 'had had' had had the examiners' approval."

Continue working on the clown nose database from last time. Should be due at the end of the period.

Note: the web page was not available this day.