Programming in Perl

Announcements

Thursday, May 1, 2003

• The final exam questions and answers are currently posted to the handouts page.
• I am in the process of correcting the final exams. My goal is to have them done before Saturday night, but that's not a guarantee.

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

• Now on the handouts page is Final Exam Information including time, location, content, and structure. PLEASE READ IT.

Monday, April 21, 2003

• To give an idea of what I'm looking for in regards to HW7 Option A, I've posted my solution. This is a compiled version for a Win32 platform, using perl2exe. Frankly, this was easier than I expected (took me less than a day), and I strongly suggest everyone attempt at least Option A.

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

• As the pass/fail deadline is this Friday, I am making available now the Final Exam from last semester. There were two versions, which are linked on the handouts page. I suggest you give yourself accurate test conditions when taking these exams. They will be a good indication of how well you will do on the actual Final Exam.
• Here is the official allowances for the Final Exam: You may use any books, notes, or websites you would like. You may also use the Perl interpreter itself. You may not use any chatting clients, email programs, or other human beings (nor intelligent dolphins).
• I have posted Homework 7 a week early. It is due the evening before the first day of finals.

Wednesday, April 9, 2003

• Homework 6 is now posted. It is due on April 22nd.

Sunday, March 30, 2003

• HW5 FAQ has been started.

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

• Homework 5 has now been posted. It is due in 2 weeks, on Tuesday, April 8th, at 11:59:59pm EDT.

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

• Both submission scripts now support multiple files for HW4 submission. Please note the following important caveats: If you have more than one file to submit, you MUST either compress them into a zip file (using either Unix's zip or any standard Windows zipping program), or create a tarball using Unix's tar and gzip. ONLY files ending with .zip or .tar.gz (case sensitive!) will be accepted in this manner. Any other file will be treated as plaintext and will therefore likely not be submitted properly.
  If you have any questions, PLEASE ask. And if you note any problems with the submission scripts, please let me know ASAP.

Thursday, March 6, 2003

• My solution to HW3 has been posted. Two big things to note: It is not necessary to do all of your regular expression parsing in one gigantic pattern. Please pay special attention to the way I broke it up into two or three tasks. Secondly, pay attention to the way look-ahead assertions are used in the replacement of "Renssealer" but not "Renssealer Polytechnic Institute".

Wednesday, March 5, 2003

• HW4 has now been posted. It is due in two weeks (not counting spring break).

Tuesday, March 4, 2003

• Please read the updated HW3 FAQ if you are having problems opening files with glob()

Tuesday, February 25, 2003

• Tomorrow's class will be cancelled. We will continue with our lecture on Object Oriented Perl Programming next week, Wednesday, March 5^th.

Thursday, February 20, 2003

• My solution to HW2 has now been posted. Please pay special attention to the way hashes are used, as well as the sorting algorithm.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

• HW3 has now been posted. It is due in two weeks, on 3/4/2003

Thursday, February 13, 2003

• Because of Monday falling on a Tuesday next week, James' office hours will be cancelled. Richard's regular Monday hours will be held on Tuesday (1pm-2pm, CII3112). My Tuesday hours will be held on Tuesday as normal (3:30-4:30, Lally 004).

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

• Dave has completed grading HW1. If you did not receive a grade to your RCS account, you either did not submit a HW, or have not filled out the sign-up form I asked you to fill out during the first few weeks of class. Do so immediately
  If you have questions about your grade, direct them to Dave (fosted@cs.rpi.edu). If you cannot resolve your issue with Dave, then take it to me.

Friday, February 7, 2003

• I have just emailed labstaff requesting new accounts for those students who indicated they do not have accounts on the signup page. I have also requested password resets for those students that said they do not know their passwords, and for those that have accounts but said that they don't know if they did.
  Labstaff will likely get all these accounts taken care of within a week. When you are emailed (to your RCS account), please make sure you read the email very carefully, and immediately follow the enclosed directions on changing your temporary password.

Thursday, February 6, 2003

• My solution to HW1 is now available. Please pay special attention to the way a hash is used to easily count the words in part B. If you have any questions or comments about my solution, please let me know.

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

• Homework 2 is now available. It is due Tuesday, February 18th, at 11:59:59pm EST

Saturday, February 1, 2003

• A Sample file and output for HW1 Part B are now available (assuming a command of "both" is issued).

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

• HW1 FAQ now available. Check it frequently.
• Homework 1 has now been posted. It is due Tuesday, February 4th at 11:59:59pm EST.
• Due to scheduling problems, we may be forced to have the final exam during Exam Week rather than during the last day of class. If this happens, we will likely use the extra week to continue the study of Perl/Tk. More information will be made available as soon as I have it.

Thursday, January 16, 2003

• One student pointed out that O'Reilly makes a product known as The Perl CD Bookshelf. This is a CDROM package containing seven different Perl books, including the Camel, Llama, and Emu. The link above is to the Amazon.com listing, where the cost of the whole package is a mere $83.97, a great deal as compared to buying all the books indvidually. I should point out that the final exam will be taken on a computer (your own or a desktop in one of the labs), so there should be no problem buying the CD versions rather than the print.

Monday, January 13, 2003

• Academic and Research Computing is offering a series of "Short Courses" at the beginning of this semester. If your programming experience is limited to programming in the MS Windows environment, I strongly suggest you take the following two courses:
  • Introduction to UNIX - Tuesday, 1/21, 2-4pm, JEC 3207
  • Introduction to emacs - Tuesday, 1/28, 2-4pm, JEC 3207
  There is no cost for registering for these courses, and they will greatly help you in this class. You can register online at http://www.rpi.edu/computing/courses.

Saturday, January 11, 2003

• Welcome to Programming in Perl. Within the first week of class, please fill out this signup form. This will add you to the class mailing list as well as the course grading system. No grades can be recorded for you until this form has been filled out. Thank you.

Tuesday, November 26, 2002

• This is the work-in-progress webpage for Spring 03's Programming in Perl Course. It is not yet finished, and likely contains several broken links.
• Currently, the class is full. However, I am confident that will change within the first two weeks of class. Therefore, if you would like me to sign a closed-section form authorizing you take the class, please bring the form to my office. It is located in Lally 004. My Fall 02 office hours are Tuesdays 4pm-5pm and Fridays 2pm-3pm.

Course Policies

This 2-credit course will run the entire semester, from 4:00pm to 5:50pm on Wednesdays.

There will be one homework assigned aproximately every two weeks, for a total of Aproximately seven (7) assignments throughout the course of the semester. Submission instructions will be included with each assignment. All homeworks will be due at 11:59:59pm Eastern Time on the due date. Homework will be accepted up to 24 hours past the deadline at a penalty of 20% off the homework's grade. Homeworks turned in more than 24 hours past the deadline will be graded a 0.

There will be a final exam on the last day of class. You will have the full 1 hour, 50 minutes to work on the exam. The final exam will require you to apply knowledge gained during the entire course, but will focus on specific material from the second half.

Your course grade will be derived by taking either
70% of the Homework average and 30% of the Final Exam
or
80% of the Homework average and 20% of the Final Exam,
whichever results in a higher course average for each student.

Your letter grade will be computed based on the following scale: (numeric grades will be rounded to the nearest tenth of a point)

A

>= 90.0%

B

80.0%-89.9%

C

70.0%-79.9%

D

60.0%-69.9%

F

< 60.0%

Do NOT expect a curve or scale. If there are extreme circumstances (ex, everyone in the class is getting an F), I may consider scaling the final grades, but don't plan for it. Along the same lines, under no circumstances will there be any opportunity to salvage a grade by redoing an assignment or by doing an 'extra credit' asignment.

Academic Integrity

All homeworks are to be done individually, unless specifically noted otherwise. You may discuss programming style, concepts, and error debugging with your classmates, but you may not work together on an assignment. Do not look at anyone else's code, and do not show your code to anyone else.

All of the following are considered violations of Academic Integrity, and will be penalizied equally:

• Copying (manually or mechanically) the homework assignment of another student (past or current)
• Giving (directly or indirectly) your code to another student
• Working on an assignment in cooperation with another person
• Placing your code in any publicly accessable location (ex: public-access computer, public drive of a networked computer)
• Lending your computer, which contains your code, to another student, even if there is no intention of Academic Dishonesty

In addition, YOU are responsible for ensuring that no other student is able to access your code. Take any and all necessary precautions to prevent this.
In all cases of academic dishonesty, no attempt will be made to determine which submission is "Authentic" or "Original". Both students will be penalized equally, as follows:

• First violation: Failure of the assignment, and a one letter grade reduction off the final grade
• Second violation: Failure of the course

When taking the final exam, you may use only the resources specifically noted as acceptable. These may or may not include lecture notes, your own notes, the course textbooks, or other books. Under no circumstances will these include any other students. Acceptable resources will be noted at least two (2) weeks prior to the exam.

RPI-Speak:

"The definitions and examples presented (in the Rensselaer Handbook) are samples of the various types of academic dishonesty and are not to be construed as an exhaustive or exclusive list. The academic dishonesty policy applies to all students, undergraduate and graduate, and also to scholarly pursuits and research. Additionally, attempts to commit academic dishonesty or to assist in the commission or attempt of such an act, are also violations of this policy.
. . .
If found in violation of academic dishonestly policies, students may be subject to two types of penalties. The Instructor administers an academic (grade) penalty, and the student may be subject to the procedures and penalties of the student judicial system outlined in this handbook.
. . .
If it is concluded that a student has violated the Institute academic dishonesty policy, it is the faculty member's responsibility to determine the academic (grade) penalty (i.e., failure of the course, significant reduction of the final grade, etc.)" -- The Rensselaer Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities

English:

You cheat, you fail -- Paul Lalli

Syllabus

NOTE: This schedule is Tentative. The topics we cover each week will depend almost entirely on how much we were able to cover in the previous lecture.

Perl Quotes

A great many things have been said about Perl. Many of them quite funny. If you happen to come across a passage about Perl that makes you grin or laugh, please share your good fortune with the rest of the class.

Links

The following hyperlinks may be useful to your learning of Perl and your success in this course:

• RPInfo
• RPI's Computer Science department
• Programming in Perl - Spring 1999 - The semester *Paul* took the course...
• Programming in Perl - Fall 2001
• Programming in Perl - Spring 2002
• Programming in Perl - Fall 2002
• perl.com - The official home of Perl on the web
• perl.com's documentation - kind of an online, lighter version of the Camel
• ActiveState's ActivePerl - download perl for your Windows machine
• ActiveState's Visual Perl - download a Perl plug-in for Visual Studio .NET
• CPAN - Comprehensive Perl Archive Network: Download Perl modules not included with the core
• Amazon.com's Camel listing
• Amazon.com's Llama listing
• Amazon.com's Mouse listing
• Amazon.com's Emu listing
• WinSCP - Secure Copy client for Windows
• Tera Term SSH - SSH client for Windows. (You must first download and install Tera Term Pro (linked from that page) and then extract the ttssh package into the TTPro directory)
• GNU Emacs Reference Card

Please feel free to suggest another link

Definitions & Acronyms

C

Probably the industry-standard programming language. Paul likes to live in denial that it exists, but perl is actually written in C.

Camel

Nickname for Programming Perl, the book on Perl

camel

"Kind of a horse designed by committe." The pseudo-official mascot of Perl. The association of camels with Perl is trademarked by O'Reilly - so don't tell them Paul uses a camel for PerlRPI's buddy icon.

CPAN

Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. Repository for all Perl modules not included in the core distribution

Java

Ewwwwwwwww!

Labstaff

The RPI Computer Science department's group of staff responsible for maintaining the Computer Science network - which is completely distinct from RCS. They can be reached at labstaff@cs.rpi.edu

Lalli

Your instructor. Not to be confused with Lally

Lally

Your instructor's office building. Not to be confused with Lalli

Llama

Nickname for Learning Perl, an extremely good tutorial for Perl

Mouse

Nickname for CGI Programming with Perl, an excellent reference for learning to create CGI scripts using Perl

Perl

Pratical Extraction and Report Language. The language we study in this course. Note this is *not* an acronym (it's a retronym), so don't make it all-caps.

perl

the implementation of Perl. ie, the program that runs your Perl script.

RCS

Rensselaer Computer Systems. The network of computer systems and terminals all over campus. In reality, the network includes machines which run Windows, Unix, and Macintosh. As far as this class is concerned, "RCS" refers soley to the Unix machines on which perl is installed.

RCS Id

Rensselaer Computer Systems Identification. Your login Id. The first part of your email address. Not to be confused with your RIN.

RegExps

Regular Expressions. The power-house of Perl

RIN (aka RPI Id #)

Rensselaer Id Number. The way the registrar identifies you. The nine-digit number that replaced your social security number a few years ago. Not to be confused with your RCS Id

RPI

You should know this one

TLA

Three Letter Acronym

TMTOWTDI

There's More Than One Way To Do It. The motto of Perl.

Wall, Larry

The creator and primary maintainer of Perl. To say he has issues is something of an understatement. See what I mean?