Course pages 2019–20
Foundations of Computer Science
This course provides its teaching materials in a few formats for your convenience.
Printable
The course notes are published as a versioned PDF, with changed to subsequent versions noted here. You will receive v1.1 of these notes as a hardcopy at the first lecture.
- v1.1.pdf: initial release
Online Notebook
You can also access an interactive version of the same notes online at hub.cl.cam.ac.uk. You will need to login via your Raven id, and then navigate to the focs-201920-notebooks/ directory and click on the 1A Foundations of Computer Science.ipynb file.
The first thing you should do when you access it is to go to the Cell / Run All menu to execute all the code fragments. This interactive notebook spins up your own version of the notes, which you can edit and manipulate from your web browser. If you click on a code cell, edit it, and then press Shift+Enter, the server will evaluate your new code and show you the output.
You are encouraged to experiment with the OCaml code in this sandbox. If you need to reset your environment, simply click on Control Panel and restart your server, and you will be back to the original copy. Do not store precious notes in this notebook, as it may reset unexpectedly.
Offline Programming
Although not essential, you may find it convenient to install OCaml on your own computer. For that, you can follow the installation instructions at ocaml.org.
Slides
The lecture slides are available in PDF format: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
Recommended Reading
A good complement to this course is the OCaml From the Very Beginning book by John Whitington. If you are feeling very advanced, then the development copy of Real World OCaml may interest you -- but note that much of the content there is far beyond the syllabus required for Foundations of CS.
See also the OCaml Practical Classes for information about your ticks.