Although generally the 1998 CS core went extraordinarily well, student feedback (and TA feedback) pointed out several aspects that could be improved. This page documents what is changing this year.
Coverage: The most insightful student comments were those saying that covering fewer topics would be worthwhile if they could cover them more deeply. With some consideration, I have restructured the course around four central topics.
Language: To be more compatible with CS lab and with AP courses you may see in high school, the language choice for this year is C++. (Ok, so the real reason is that CMU doesn't support Java very well now.)
Due date: A major problem last year was insufficient staff on the night before the homework was due. A student suggested that Monday would be a better choice, and Dr Berget has agreed to this. This will encourage students to stagger when they do their assignments throughout the weekend.
Group work: The group policy was a bit rough around the edges last year. At the TAs' suggestion, this year the programming assignments will be in groups of at most 3, and the written assignments will be completed individually.
Self-paced study: This was an overwhelming success. The biggest suggestion here was to have more of it, so students could get to the projects. The schedule adds one more day of this.
Quiz: I'm keeping the quiz, with basically the same structure. It is extremely valuable for evaluating individual students and the course as a whole.
Use of computers: About half of the lectures this year will use the computer as a visual aid to illustrate programming and real-world simulations.
Volume: Several students asked that I try to speak louder. In fact, I was trying throughout the course, apparently with only moderate success. I'll try using a microphone this year.
Cluster lectures: Lots of students recommend this, but the PGSS framework doesn't allow too much of this. I tried to get enough computer resources for a beginners' lab one day, but to no avail.
I'm restructuring it to according with the choice of four emphasized topics. I'm rewriting much of the programming chapters for C++ (and also hopefully to make it more understandable). And I'm rewriting a lot of the rest.
That last paragraph doesn't say too much for my ability to write coherently. Let me assure you that I wrote the textbook with more care.