The Tao of Computing:
A Down-to-Earth Approach to Computer Fluency
 
by Henry M. Walker Jones and Bartlett Publishers
 

The Tao of Computing: A Down-to-earth Approach to Computer Fluency

Several laboratory exercises are under development to support the book The Tao of Computing: A Down-to-earth Approach to Computer Fluency by Henry M. Walker, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2005. With these labs under development, readers are advised to expect these materials to change periodically through Spring 2005, as these labs are used in courses.

Suggestions and feedback are welcome!

All materials copyrighted by Henry M. Walker, 2004, 2005

Quick Links

The following links access the most recent complete drafts of these labs.

Labs Programs

Labs

Several laboratory exercises are under development. The following links provide access to completed drafts.

Related
Chapter		 Title Outline of Topics Status
2 Integer Representation Draft 1.0 available
  • Integer Storage
  • Size of Integers
  • Consequences
2 Image Processing Draft 2.0 available
  • RGB scales
  • GIF and JPEG formats
  • Image processing with GIMP
2 A Photo Album Draft 2.0 available
  • Image file formats
  • Image size
  • Image quality
4 File Sharing (in Unix/Linux) Draft 2.0 available
  • File permissions
  • Execute permision
  • Some Linux commands
5 Databases Under development
  • Relations and tables
  • Data storage and retrieval
  • Queries
5 Spreadsheets Draft 1.0 available
  • Cell definitions
  • Computations
  • Graphics
6 Run-time Experiments Draft 2.0 available
  • Linear and Binary Search
  • Insertion sort and quicksort
  • Polynomial and non-polynomial times
6 Run-time Experiments Draft 2.0 available
  • Insertion Sort
  • Quicksort
  • Permutation Sort
11 The Basics of html Draft 2.0 available
  • Structure of a Web page
  • html tags
  • Links and images
11 User Data in html Draft 2.0 available
  • Static and dynamic Web pages
  • html forms
  • Get and Put methods
  • Privacy issues
11 Tables and Frames in html Draft 2.0 available
  • Tables
  • Frames
  • Background colors
  • Links and cross referencing
12 Browser Information and Privacy Draft 2.0 available
  • Browser-server communication
  • Dynamic Web pages
  • Privacy issues
12 An Introduction to JavaScript Draft 2.0 available
  • Events and event handling
  • Basics for using JavaScript
  • Changing background colors
12 Pop-up Windows and Error Checking with JavaScript Draft 2.0 available
  • Pop-up windows
  • Simple error checking

Programs

Related
Chapter		Web Pages and Programs
2 Programs that can be compiled and run on students' computers to experimentation related to the storage of integers
  • integer-rep.c is written in the C programming language and utilizes fixed-size-storage (both short and long integers)
  • integer-rep.ss is written in the Scheme programming language and utilizes variable-size-storage.

5 Spreadsheets that illustrate some basic capabilities of this type of software package
  • spreadsheet travel-spreadsheet-v1 illustrates spreadsheet functions for a simple expense account and is available in Excel and OpenOffice formats.
  • spreadsheet travel-spreadsheet-v2 categorizes entries for an expense account, illustrates basic graphics functions, and is available in Excel and OpenOffice formats.

6 Programs that can be compiled and run on students' computers to experimentation related to timing of searching and sorting algorithms
  • searchTest.java is written in the Java programming language and provides timing information when a linear and a binary search are performed on arrays of various sizes.
  • sortTest.java is written in the Java programming language and provides timing information when an insertion sort and a quicksort are performed on arrays of various sizes.
  • permutationSortTest.java is written in the Java programming language and provides timing information when a permurtation sort is performed on arrays of various sizes.

11 Forms that ask for user data, with a script that processes that data on a Web server
12 Information received or inferred through interactions with your browser

This document is available on the World Wide Web as 

     http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/fluency-book/labs/

created December 2, 2003
last revised April 29, 2005

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For more information, please contact Henry M. Walker at walker@cs.grinnell.edu.