Reading assignments

In the textbook:

• Chapter 1 (Introduction to Computers, Problem Solving, and Programming)
• Chapter 2 (Overview of C++), except Section 2.7
• Chapter 3 (Top-Down Design With Functions and Classes)
• Chapter 4 (Selection Structures: if and switch statements), except Section 4.8
• Chapter 5 (Repetition and Loop Structures), except Sections 5.6, 5.7, 5.8
• Chapter 6 (Modular Programming) except Sections 6.4 and 6.6
• Chapter 9 (Data Structures: Arrays and Structs) except Sections 9.6, 9.9
• Chapter 10 (User-defined Classes) except Sections 10.7, 10.8
• Section 9.6 (Analyzing Algorithms: Big-O Notation)
• Chapter 13 (Pointers and Dynamic Data Structures) except the part of Section 10.3 that covers circular and two-way lists, Sections 13.4, 13.5, and 13.7
• Sections 7.1 and 7.2

Other required readings:

• The Story of Mel, by Ed Nather

Optional readings:

• Origins of Belle, Unix, C
• Ken Thompson's Turing award lecture, "Reflections on Trusting Trust", 1984.
• The Development of the C Language, as written by Dennis M Ritchie
• A History of C++: 1979-1991, written by Bjarne Stroustrup (in PDF)
• Ian Joyner's critique of C++
• The Mars Climate Orbiter was lost on 23 September 1999 because part of its software did not satisfy its specification. This error cost about $125 million. According to an article in IEEE Computer (no longer online), this problem could have been corrected during the flight had JPL managers been more willing to consider the possibility of such errors.
• A software problem that cost $1.2 billion dollars: the destruction of a Titan 4 rocket and its payload, 30 April 1999.
• Dogbert has good reason to recommend that a new $150M software system be scrapped.
• Notes on frequency and spectral analysis

Reference readings:

• The draft standard for C++, 1997. The actual standard is similar, but is not available for free distribution on the WWW.