CS320n – Elements of Visual
Programming
Course Introduction
Mike Scott
Who Am I
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Lecturer in CS department since 2000
Undergrad Stanford, MSCS RPI
US Navy for 8 years, submarines
2 years Round Rock High School
Wife (Kelly) is a nurse. 2 daughters, Olivia
and Isabelle
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Course Introduction
2
What We Will Do Today
• Discuss course content, syllabus, and tools
• demos of course software
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3
Administrative Information
• class web site:
www.cs.utexas.edu/~scottm/cs320n
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What Will We Do in CS320n
• Have Fun?!?!
• Learn to write computer programs using
Alice and LabVIEW
• Okay if you “Never ever-ed.”
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How This Class Will Work
• In class
– lecture and lab work
– demos
– answers your questions
• Outside of class
– exercises (not graded)
– reading
– assignments
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Grading
• Homework Projects ~ 50%
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6 Alice projects
3 LabVIEW projects
Point value varies per project
some done as individuals, some as pairs
in class presentations of 2 projects
projects are to be your own work! Copying or having
someone else do them is academic dishonesty and
will result in an F in the course
• Attendance and Class work, ~ 10%
• Midterm ~ 20%
• Final ~ 20%, last week of class
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Books
• Learning to Program with
Alice, Second Edition.
• ISBN 10: 013208516X,
ISBN 13: 978-0132085168
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
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Homework Procedures
• Your must obtain an account for the CS
department Elements Lab
• Visit this website to request account
• http://www.cs.utexas.edu/facilities/computing/
– takes at least a day for account to become active.
– do this today, please!
• account allows you to use computers in CS
Microlab in Painter Hall and to turn in programs
to an account on Elements lab server
– software used in course is available and FREE, so
you can work at home if you prefer
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What is Visual Programming?
• What is a computer program?
– Do you use many programs?
– Have you ever written a program?
• What skills are necessary for
programming?
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Programming and Computing
• NY Times Article by Steve Lohr
• http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/technol
ogy/23geeks.html
• Jamika Burge, a computer grad student at Virginia Tech, logging video
of conflict negotiations during her internship at I.B.M. in San Jose.
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Text Based Programming
private String[] getWordList()
{
Scanner s;
String temp;
JFileChooser chooser = new JFileChooser();
TreeSet<String> words = new TreeSet<String>();
//open the file chooser and get a file
int retval = chooser.showOpenDialog(null);
chooser.grabFocus();
if (retval == JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION)
{
File source = chooser.getSelectedFile();
try
{
s = new Scanner( source );
while( s.hasNext() )
{
temp = s.next();
if( temp != null && temp.length() == WORD_SIZE )
{
words.add( temp );
}
}
s.close();
}
}
catch(IOException e)
{
System.out.println("An error occured while trying “ +
“to read from the file: " + e);
}
return words.toArray(new String[words.size()]);
}
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Eww!!
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Visual Programming
• Use of a graphical interface to create the
program instead of text
– easier with simple programs
– less likely to make mistakes
– Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++
• visual tool for creating graphical user interface
(GUI), but lots of text based programming still
required
• IEEE has an annual conference on Visual
Languages/Human Centric Computing (VL/HCC)
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Visual Programming
• Lots of true Visual Languages
– VIPR, Self, Pygmalion, Prograph and many,
many more
– not a lot of commercial successes
• Exception: LabVIEW
• An educational language and tool called
Alice
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An Alice Program
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LabVIEW Program
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Demos
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