Computing & Informatics: Computer Science

Unit 1: Programming and Computational Thinking

Revision of the basics of Python
Functions: scope, parameter passing, mutable/immutable properties of data objects, pass
arrays to functions, return values, functions using libraries: mathematical, and string functions.
File handling: open and close a file, read, write, and append to a file, standard input, output,
and error streams, relative and absolute paths.
Using Python libraries: create and import Python libraries
Recursion: simple algorithms with recursion: factorial, Fibonacci numbers; recursion on
arrays: binary search
Idea of efficiency: performance defined as inversely proportional to the wall clock time, count
the number of operations a piece of code is performing, and measure the time taken by a
program. Example: take two different programs for the same problem, and understand how
the efficient one takes less time.
Data visualization using Pyplot: line chart, pie chart, and bar chart.
Data-structures: lists, stacks, queues.

Unit 2: Computer Networks

Structure of a network: Types of networks: local area and wide area (web and internet), new technologies such as cloud and IoT, public vs. private cloud, wired and wireless networks; concept of a client and server.
Network devices such as a NIC, switch, hub, router, and access point.
Network stack: amplitude and frequency modulation, collision in wireless networks, error checking, and the notion of a MAC address, main idea of routing. IP addresses: (v4 and v6), routing table, router, DNS, and web URLs, TCP: basic idea of retransmission, and rate modulation when there is congestion (analogy to a road network), Protocols: 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi. What makes a protocol have a higher bandwidth?
Basic network tools: traceroute, ping, ipconfig, nslookup, whois, speed-test.
Application layer: HTTP (basic idea), working of email, secure communication: encryption and certificates (HTTPS), network applications: remote desktop, remote login, HTTP, FTP, SCP,SSH, POP/IMAP, SMTP, VoIP, NFC.

Unit 3: Data Management

Write a minimal Django based web application that parses a GET and POST request, and
writes the fields to a file - flat file and CSV file.
Interface Python with an SQL database
SQL commands: aggregation functions – having, group by, order by.

Unit 4: Society, Law and Ethics

Intellectual property rights, plagiarism, digital rights management, and licensing (Creative
Commons, GPL and Apache), open source, open data, privacy.
Privacy laws, fraud; cyber-crime- phishing, illegal downloads, child pornography, scams;
cyber forensics, IT Act, 2000.
Technology and society: understanding of societal issues and cultural changes induced by
technology.
E-waste management: proper disposal of used electronic gadgets.
Identity theft, unique ids, and biometrics.
Gender and disability issues while teaching and using computers.

Practical Excersizes -Programming in Python:

Recursively find the factorial of a natural number.
Read a file line by line and print it.
Remove all the lines that contain the character `a' in a file and write it to another file.
Write a Python function sin(x, n) to calculate the value of sin(x) using its Taylor series
expansion up to n terms. Compare the values of sin(x) for different values of n with the correct value.
Write a random number generator that generates random numbers between 1 and 6
(simulates a dice).
Write a recursive code to find the sum of all elements of a list.
Write a recursive code to compute the nth Fibonacci number.
Write a Python program to implement a stack and queue using a list data-structure.
Write a recursive Python program to test if a string is a palindrome or not.
Write a Python program to plot the function y = x using the pyplot or matplotlib libraries.
Create a graphical application that accepts user inputs, performs some operation on them, and then writes the output on the screen. For example, write a small calculator. Use the tkinter library.
Open a webpage using the urllib library.
Compute EMIs for a loan using the numpy or scipy libraries.
Take a sample of 10 phishing e-mails and find the most common words.

5.2. Data Management: SQL and web-server

Find the min, max, sum, and average of the marks in a student marks table.
Find the total number of customers from each country in the table (customer ID, customer name, country) using group by.
Write a SQL query to order the (student ID, marks) table in descending order of the marks.
Integrate SQL with Python by importing the MySQL module
Write a Django based web server to parse a user request (POST), and write it to a CSV file.

Computing & Informatics