Imperative Problem Solving

Instructor

Charlie Curtsinger

Meeting Times

Tuesdays and Thursdays in Noyce 3819
Section 01: 8:00–9:50am
Section 02: 2:00–3:50pm

Office Hours

Tuesday, 10:00am–11:00am
Wednesday, 1:15pm–3:30pm
Thursday, 10:00am–11:00am
Make an appointment, or drop in when I am unbooked. Please try to make just one appointment ahead of time each week so all students are able to attend office hours; if a time is still available the same day you are welcome to book another appointment or drop in.

Textbook

C Programming: A Modern Approach by K. N. King (Second Edition)
Beej’s Guide to C Programming by Brian Hall (online only)

Mentors

Jeronimo Camargo (morning section)
Almond Heil (afternoon section)

Mentor Sessions

Tuesday, 7:00pm–9:00pm in Noyce 3819

Evening Tutor Hours

Sunday, 3–5pm and 7–10pm in Noyce 3813 and 3815
Monday–Thursday, 7–10pm in Noyce 3813 and 3815

About this course

Welcome to the Spring 2025 session of CSC 161: Imperative Problem Solving. This course website will be your primary source for the course schedule, several homework, and general course policies listed on the syllabus. This site will be shared for both the morning and afternoon sections. Both sections will stay in sync as much as possible, but there may occasionally be differences in the deadlines or assigned work across the two sections.

This class uses the C programming language, a classic and influential example of an imperative language still in widespread use today. Imperative programming languages, and C in particular, sit quite close to the hardware that runs the programs we write; as a result, solving problems in C requires us to think carefully about the structure of our programs and the resources we use. The reward for this extra effort is that C programs can be extremely fast, and can run on practically any computing device. Building your imperative problem solving skills in C will prepare you for CSC 207: Object-Oriented Problem Solving, Data Structures, and Algorithms. You’ll also be prepared to pick up many of the C-inspired languages on your own, and of course you’ll be better at mixing approaches from both functional and imperative styles in any programming language.