Room	LDMC 1030
Time	Tue & Thu from noon to 1:30
Kathy Traxler	office LDMC 2013 email ktraxler@lsu.edu aim & yahoo krtraxler
Frank Löffler	office LDMC 2043 email knarf@cct.lsu.edu aim & skype knarrff

This course is intended as a very practical course for students in science, technology, engingeering, arts and mathematics (STEAM). Today when computation is considered the third pillar of science, students in many disciplines are not aware of the computational tools needed to work in collaborative research groups. They are also unaware of how to talk to the programmers in their group. This course focuses on teaching some of these tools and discusses topics to programmers in their groups.

We will discuss such matters as the practice of programming, in an attempt to expose all students to the development of programs. Programming is more than just writing code. Programmers must also assess tradeoffs, choose among design alternatives, debug and test, improve performance, and maintain software written by themselves and others. At the same time, they must be concerned with compatibility, robustness, and relieability, while meeting specifications and milestones.

We will also learn how to use many tools used by programmers and scientists in support of their development of systems and research.

Topics (tentatively)

1. 01/16 Course Introduction
2. 01/21 Linux Basics
3. 01/23 Secure Shell
4. 01/28 Sneaux
5. 01/30 More Linux Basics
6. 02/04 Introduction to the "vi" editor
7. 02/06 Problem solving I
8. 02/11 Problem solving II
9. 02/13 Versioning Systems: svn/git
10. 02/18 Compiling
11. 02/20 Collaboration/Project Management
12. 02/25 Project discussions, debugging/profiling
13. 02/27 Make
14. 03/06 Review
15. 03/11 Midterm
16. 03/13 Project discussions, Basics of Matplotlib
17. 03/18 Visualization with Matplotlib I
18. 03/20 Visualization with Matplotlib II
19. 03/25 Another Tutorial on Matplotlib
20. 03/27Project development by example
21. 04/01
22. 04/03 Project review
23. 04/08 Latex
24. 04/10 Visualization with Paraview, preparation: download and install ParaView, download data
25. 04/22 Cactus
26. 04/24 ...
27. 04/29 ...
28. 05/01 Review
29. 05/0[68] Final

Group Projects

• ./Mission Launch
• Audio Conversion and Manipulation
• ?
• ?
• ?

Grading

All assignments are required. They must be on time. Assignments will be algorithms, programs, short papers and presentations.

Grading scale is based on a ten point break with 91 – 100up being an ‘A’, 80 – 89 a ‘B’ and etc.

Absences

If you are absent unexpectedly let us know why as soon as possible, particularly if you have an assignment(s) due.

If you are absent due to travel for conferences, etc. let us know ahead of time so we can work out a plan to keep you up to date with lectures and assignments.