Ron K. Cytron
Washington University in Saint Louis
*

Welcome to CSE131
• Please find and take seats near the front if possible
• As you come in please use WUTexter to answer the following poll:
Which of the following best describes why you are taking this course?
Likely major in CS
Likely minor in CS
Satisfies a requirement
For my own interest
Freshman
/Sophomore
A
C
E
F
Junior /
Senior / Grad
B
D
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Another WUTexter poll
• Please answer the following (your responses are anonymous)
Which of the following best describes you and the assigned reading:
I did the assigned reading and understood it
– A) Well
– B) Mostly
– C) Somewhat
– D) Hardly at all
E) I knew about the reading but did not do it
F) What assigned reading?
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About me
• Texan by birth, New Yorker by choice, St Louisan by marriage
– Wife is a band teacher / director for Ladue schools (percussionist)
– 3 Kids
• Recent graduate of CSU (zoology, at Ft Collins, CO) [ the kid who got Furby ]
• Junior at Brandeis (linguistics/education at Waltham, MA)
• Freshman in high school (roller coaster designer at Ladue)
• Undergrad at Rice (EE/CS/MathSci), grad student at U of Illinois (CS)
• At Wash U since 1991
– Taught for NYU and Columbia before that
• Experience in industry
– IBM Research (Yorktown Heights NY)
– Exegy (startup in St Louis)
– Consulting
• Lead designer for the old and new 131
–
New one follows book's curriculum (mostly)
– More bottom-up
– Greater focus on writing programs "from scratch"
• Call me….
– Ron
– Professor Cytron
– Dr. Cytron
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Things to go over
• Policies on the web pages
• WUTexter: responses, questions, confuse-o-meter
• Semester ONline
• Academic integrity
– If you are caught cheating, you get an F in the course, and other action may be taken
– We use software to find similar code, and it is very effective
If you are tempted to cheat, get help instead !
• CSE 131 R – one unit seminar starts Sep 9
– If you are majoring / minoring or want extra material
– Guest lectures by faculty on their research
– Material supplementary to this course
• Loop invariants and proofs, undecidability
• Computer horror stories and disasters
• Binary search trees – the "old" Lab 9
– Choose and design of the end-of-semester game lab for this course
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