Please complete ASAP!
This lab consists of some simple tasks that you should complete on your own as soon as possible.
If you encounter any problems while completing these tasks, please post your question to Piazza, our class discussion site. The link to our Piazza course page is available in this site’s navigation bar.
As your next task, please review the policies of the course, which can be found in the syllabus and using the links in the navigation bar. In particular, please review carefully:
Feel free to let us know if you have any questions.
Please use the link below to complete a short survey that is required of all students in CS 460.
CS 460 start-of-semester survey
The only required textbook is a coursepack containing all of the lecture notes. You can obtain it as a PDF here.
Throughout the coursepack, there are portions that you will need to fill in as you participate in the lectures and watch the pre-lecture videos. Therefore, we strongly encourage you to either:
download the PDF onto a tablet and mark it up there
or
purchase a printed version of the coursepack from Fedex Office at the corner of Commonwealth Ave and Cummington Mall. It costs approximately $25.
Fedex Office will be printing them on demand. To order one, send an
email to usa5012@fedex.com with the following details:
You do not need to send them the PDF. They already have it.
If you place an order by 5 p.m. on a weekday, it should be ready for pickup by 12 p.m. the following business day. Please note that Fedex Office may not reply to your email or notify you that the coursepack is ready.
We’ll be using Top Hat Pro for pre-lecture quizzes and in-lecture exercises.
Top Hat Pro requires a paid subscription, and a full breakdown of the available subscription options can be found here.
You just need Top Hat Pro. You do not need any add-ons.
You should receive an email invitation from Top Hat with all of the necessary information. If you don’t receive this email, you can also find our lecture section’s Top Hat URL and join code in the Announcements section of our Blackboard site. Use the Blackboard link in the navigation bar to find it.
For more information, consult the Top Hat Overview and Getting Started Guide.
Should you require assistance with Top Hat at any time, please contact
their support team directly by email (support@tophat.com),
the in-app support button, or phone (1-888-663-5491).
We will be using VS Code to write Java code for several of the homework assignments.
If you already have a version VS Code on your current laptop and you have used it to write Java code, you can skip to the next task.
Otherwise, follow the appropriate instructions for your operating system:
Once you have installed the necessary software, we recommend that you test it by creating and running a simple program. If you encounter any issues in doing so, come to office hours or post a question on Piazza.
Last updated on September 15, 2024.