MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

EECS Fall 1996 Catalogue Supplement

6.096 Introduction to Interactive Programming

TR 2-3:30, 12-182; labs M 2-5, E53-220 and T 2-3:30, E53-220
3-3-6
Prof. Lynn Stein, NE43-811, x2663

This course is an introduction to computer programming. It will be taught in the Java programming language, and will teach the language (i.e., no prior programming experience is assumed), but it is not about the language. The theme of this course is interactive programming. Most computation these days is not algorithmic question-answering in desktop boxes (as typically taught in introductory computer science). Instead, this course will focus on a model of computation as a set of simultaneous ongoing entities embedded in and interacting with a dynamic environment: computation as interaction; computation as it occurs in spreadsheets and video games, web applications and robots.

A major component of the class will be a weekly three hour in-class laboratory. Much of this laboratory will be spent in collaborative work on program development, with an emphasis on student-student interaction and student-student teaching, facilitated and enriched by the course staff. In addition, design and implementation work will be supplemented with observational laboratory assignments, inviting students to consider not only how to build a program, but how to anticipate its behavior and how to modify that behavior.

Notes:

1. This course does not overlap significantly with 6.001, and it will not satisfy the 6.001 requirement for Course VI students.

2. For interested freshmen: there will be an optional Freshman Advisor Seminar associated with this course. Students interested in this option should register for the associated seminar through the Freshman Advisor Seminar Program: contact Donna Friedman in the Office of Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs. Enrollment in the Freshman Advisor Seminar is not a prerequisite for enrollment in this subject.