INFSCI 0015 - Data Structures and Programming Techniques
(Fall 2000, CRN 20813)
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INFSCI 0015 Course Tools
CourseInfo
The key tool for the course is CourseInfo 3.0 Course Management System, a product of Blackboard, Inc.
The complete set of course materials
is available on the course site developed with the CourseInfo system. You need to have Pitt computer account to login to CourseInfo site.
C Development Tools
To complete the course you will need to write and debug C programs. To do that you need either
- an interactive development environment (IDE) for C or C++, such as Microsoft Visual C++
- an editor (wordpad would work, but there are better editors for C) and a C compiler.
If you are an experienced user, you are welcome to use Microsoft Visual Studio or Borland IDEs that you have installed on all Pitt computers and that you can get as a part of the campus Microsoft package
Otherwise, we would suggest either use a simpler IDE or a pair editor - compiler. Here are some
most relevant Free software options
A Free Simple IDE
LCC-Win32 is a relatively simple IDE with a nice C-oriented editor and a possibility to trace program execution. It also includes a line-based
C compiler lcc.
The installation of LCC-Win32 is simple. Just run the downloaded lccwin32.exe file and the instalation program will do the job.
Do not forget to add c:\lcc\bin to your system's path if you plan to use line-based compiler lcc.exe in addition to IDE (it is not necessary).
C Compliler
Using a traditional line-based C-compiler is very easy and matches the explanations in the course books.
The provided old Turbo-C compiler is very small and covers all your needs.
Program Editor
You can use any text editor that you are familiar with.
Notepad and Wordpad that belong to Windows accesoiries would work (if you are using WordPad, make sure that your programs
are saved as textfile with suffix .c). If you want a little bit more comfort and functionality, use one of the following free
editors that are specially designed for editing programs.
Visualization Tools
Visualization tools will let you to look inside the working program. Unfortunately, there is not relevant visualization environment for C on Windows platform.
You could, however, use the following two "almost relevant" options.
Leonardo
The instructor uses visualization system Leonardo
to demonstrate execution of example programs in the classroom. It is a public domain software for Macintosh. Leonardo also
doubles as a complete IDE for C. So, if you have
Macintosh, you could download Leonardo and use it for all your courseworks.
Jeliot
Another great visualization system is Jeliot. Jeliot works with Java, but for the language subset that we use for our course, there is a very
simple mapping from C to Java.
Copyright © 2000 Peter Brusilovsky
