Past exam paper
SSC1 exam paper from last year.
Announcements
Schedule and responsibilities
Teaching of this module is shared as follows, all in Semester 1:
- Weeks 1-4: Nick Blundell covers graphics.
-
Weeks 5-8: Hayo Thielecke
covers streams, XML, and parsing. ✓
Also module coordinator for SSC1. - Weeks 9-11: Bob Hendley covers HCI.
SSC in context
Note that the material in SSC1 has connections to a number of other modules (Info+Web, Models of Computation, Foundations, Compilers, etc). That is a feature, not a bug. Important topics in computer science are covered from several angles and in increasing depth, which is sometimes called "iterative deepening". In SSC1, we generally take a pragmatic programming perspective on the material. Java is used as the teaching language, but the module is not primarily about Java, as we could have used C++, C# or even OCAML.
Books
Cay Horstmann and Gary Cornell: "Core Java. Volume II: Advanced Features". 8th edition. Prentice Hall. This book is essential reading for weeks 5 and 6. Chapter 1 is on streams and chapter 2 on XML.
Horstmann covers everything in great detail, so I only provide some brief notes on streams.
XML
XML was already introduced in Information and the Web in the first year. However, many students on SSC1 did not choose this option, so we will do a refresher on the basics of XML and DTDs. In SSC1, we will focus on how to process XML in Java.
Parsing
Weeks 7 and 8 will be on parsing.