1/9/2024

CS454
Principles of
Concurrent
Programming

Spring 2024
Instructor: Luís Pina
Lecture 0: Introduction
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Introduction
• My name is: Luís Pina
• Lu-eesh (like in leash) Pee-na (not Peña)
• Joined UIC in August 2019

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Introduction
• My background is in Programming
Languages and Software Systems
• My dissertation was on Dynamic Software
Updates
• How to update a program without stopping it?

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Introduction
• I enjoy biking

• I’m an avid Linux user

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I have two dogs

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I have two dogs

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I have two dogs

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Modern CPU die (Intel i7)

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How did
we get
here?

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The past
• Free performance improvement
with new hardware
• Single-threaded performance
keeps going up
• Because clock speed keeps
increasing
• No need/room to increase cores
• Not enough transistors

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The future?

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The future?

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The future?
WRONG

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The present (same since 2015)

• No more free performance
improvement with new hardware
• Single-threaded performance
plateau’d
• But Moore’s law still strong
• What can we do with all
those transistors?
• Cache?

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Modern CPU die (Intel i7)

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Mobile
CPU die
(nVidia
Tegra 2)

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Mobile CPU die

(Qualcomm
Snapdragon 810)

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How do we
program
multicores?
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How do we program multicores?

• Multi-threading widely used in Operating Systems
• Even for single-core machines
• Asynchronous I/O
• But now we need to use multicores in our programs
• Get better performance
• Actually use the hardware we bought
• Focus on correctness
• Performance important as well

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Fast vs Correct Solutions

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Unfortunately, concurrency is hard

int a = b = 0;

// Thread 1 // Thread 2
a = 1; b = 1;
return b; return a;

Which is impossible?
a) T1 returns 1, T2 returns 0
b) T1 returns 0, T2 returns 1
c) T1 returns 1, T2 returns 1
d) T1 returns 0, T2 returns 0
e) All results above are possible

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Unfortunately, concurrency is hard

int a = b = 0;

// Thread 1 // Thread 2
a = 1; b = 1;
return b; return a;

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Demo

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Unfortunately, concurrency is hard

int a = b = 0;

// Thread 1 // Thread 2
a = 1; b = 1;
return b; return a;

What went wrong?

a) The compiler has a bug
b) The OS has a bug
c) The CPU has a bug
d) Nothing went wrong

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Unfortunately, concurrency is hard

int a = b = 0;

// Thread 1 // Thread 2
a = 1; b = 1;
return b; return a;

What went wrong?

a) The compiler has a bug
b) The OS has a bug
c) The CPU has a bug
d) Nothing went wrong

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Modern Multi-Processor Architectures

int a = b = 0;
// Thread 1
a = 1;
return b;

// Thread 2
b = 1;
return a;

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Modern Multi-Processor Architectures

int a = b = 0;
// Thread 1
a = 1;
return b;

// Thread 2
b = 1;
return a;

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Modern Multi-Processor Architectures

int a = b = 0;
// Thread 1
a = 1;
return b;

// Thread 2
b = 1;
return a;

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Concurrent Programming
• Locks are only a part of
concurrent programming
• More things to see:
• Memory models
• Cache effects
• Thread communication
• Android UI thread
• Non-blocking Synchronization
• Atomic instructions
• Volatile variables
• Much more…

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Pre-requisites
CS 361: Computer Systems
• C programming
• Threads, locks, mutual exclusion

Basic understanding of software development

• Compiling, debugging, etc.

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Prerequisites
How familiar with Java are you?
a) Never heard of Java
b) I have heard of Java but never used it
c) I used Java on a personal project
d) I took a class at UIC that used Java
e) I interned at a company that used Java

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Grading - Undergrads
• Attendance: 15%

• Programming Assignments: 50%

• Midterm: 15%

• Final: 20%

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Grading - Grads
• Attendance: 10%

• Programming Assignments: 50%

• Midterm: 15%

• Final: 15%

• Research presentation: 10%

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Attendance
You can get points for attendance using one of two ways:
• In person and online synchronous
• Attend the lecture live Mondays and Wednesdays
• Online through Zoom
• Link on syllabus, Piazza, BB
• Answer 80% of clicker questions = full marks
• Classes start on time, but you can be a bit late and miss the first question and still get
full attendance
• Correctness does not count: Wrong answers are OK
• We will use iClicker for this
• Today does not count
• You can use iClicker Cloud remotely or from your phone
• No need to buy a clicker
• Please create an account on www.iclicker.com

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Attendance
You can get points for attendance using one of two ways:
• In person and online synchronous
• Attend the lecture live Mondays and Wednesdays
• Online through Zoom
• Link on syllabus, Piazza, BB
• Answer 80% of clicker questions = full marks
• Classes start on time, but you can be a bit late and miss the first question and still get
full attendance You attended class and
• Correctness does not count: Wrong answers are OK answered all clicker
• We will use iClicker for this questions wrong
• Today does not count a) You got attendance for
this class
• You can use iClicker Cloud remotely or from your phone
b) To get attendance, you
• No need to buy a clicker
also have to fill the BB
• Please create an account on www.iclicker.com
poll and get all answers
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Attendance
You can get points for attendance using one of two ways:
• In person and online synchronous
• Attend the lecture live Mondays and Wednesdays
• Online through Zoom
• Link on syllabus, Piazza, BB
• Answer 80% of clicker questions = full marks
• Classes start on time, but you can be a bit late and miss the first question and still get
full attendance You attended class but arrived
late and missed the 1st
• Correctness does not count: Wrong answers are OK
question (but answered all
• We will use iClicker for this others)
• Today does not count a) You got attendance for this
• You can use iClicker Cloud remotely or from your phone class
• No need to buy a clicker b) To get attendance, you also
• Please create an account on www.iclicker.com have to fill the BB poll and
get all answers right
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Attendance
You can get points for attendance using one of two ways:
• Asynchronous
• Watch the lecture offline
• Fill out poll on Gradescope on the clicker questions
• Until Sunday at 5pm
• Must get all the answers correct to count
• Poll is a subset of all clicker questions
• Clicker question N in class may not be question N in the poll
• Use the provided slides to answer questions correctly

• Attend 80% of classes for full marks

• You can miss 5 classes

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Async Attendance

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Async Attendance

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Attendance
• Attend 80% of classes for full marks
• In person, remote, or offline
• You can mix and match
• You can miss 5 classes

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Attendance Disclaimer
• You are supposed to come in-person
• If in-person attendance drops below 50%, getting attendance via Zoom
will not be an option anymore
• Use Zoom as a back-up in case you really cannot be on campus that day

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Assignments
• 5 assignments in Java worth 10% each = 50%
• Assignments are autograded with tests, each worth 10%
• I release all the tests with the assignments
• But I take hard-coding very seriously
• You get your grade after each submission

• Assignments require you to answer written questions about your code

• Between 20% and 50% of the assignment grade

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Assignment Release
• Every other week there’s an assignment due
• One week: Assignment is out
• Next week: Assignment is due

Assignment Released Week Due Week Due Date

A0 1 2 01/20
A1 2 4 02/03
A2 5 6 02/17
Midterm 8
A3 8 9 03/09
A4 10 12 03/30
Spring-break: 03/18 – 03/22
A5 13 15 04/20
Research presentation 8 16 04/27
(grad)
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Should I take your class?

Dear Prof Pina,

I am enrolled in the following classes: …

Should I take your class?

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Should I take your class?

Dear Prof Pina,

I am enrolled in the following classes: …

Should I take your class?

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Should I take your class?

Dear Prof Pina,

I am enrolled in the following classes: …

Should I take your class?

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Assignment Submission
• Written in Java 11
• Submitted through Github
• You have to accept the Github Classroom invitation
• You get a private repository for your code
• The last commit before the deadline is your submission
• Recommended editor: InteliJ IDEA
• Automatic Grader on Github
• Runs for each commit
• You can check your grade at any point
• I will release a set-up video for Assignment 0 that explains everything
• You must finish Assignment 0 to ensure you understand everything

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Register your
Github account
• Please register your Github
account name using the following
link: https://forms.gle/zneacPFYpR9MVwgEA

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Register your
Github account
• Please register your Github
account name on the BB poll

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Assignment Bonus
• Ask questions on Piazza
• Questions must be
• Public
• Not anonymous to the instructors
• Tagged with the assignment label
• Each question marked as good is worth 5% bonus
• Answer questions on Piazza
• Each endorsed answer is worth 5% bonus
• Find duplicates
• Answer an already answered question with a link to the original answer
• 5% each

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Assignment Due Date and Late Policy

• Assignments are due on Saturday at 5PM
• You still have most of your weekend

• No late submissions
• Your submission is the latest commit in your
Github repo before the deadline

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Assignment Re-Submission
• Assignments can be resubmitted for one week after
the due date
• I will release a video solution of each assignment
• You can go over my solution, fix your submission, and
resubmit it
• “Pair-program with the professor”
• You have until the next Saturday at 5PM to do so
• Final assignment grade
• Average between the original grade (with bonus) and the
resubmission grade
• Restrictions
• Original grade of 30% or more (50% for grads)
• Text submission explaining what you changed

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Assignments Grading
• Mostly auto-graded
• Immediate feedback after submission

• Portion of grade will be questions or a

screencast video
• E.g., what steps did you take to ensure that two
threads cannot change the same variable concurrently

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Assignments Grading
• Mostly auto-graded
• Immediate feedback after submission

• Portion of grade will be questions or a

screencast video
• E.g., what steps did you take to ensure that two
threads cannot change the same variable concurrently

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Academic
• How many are OK?
Integrity
i. I wrote pseudo-code together with a colleague that
we then implemented separately
ii. Someone sent me their implementation of (i) before I
finished mine and I used it
iii. I worked with a friend just to get the assignment
started, then we went our separate ways
iv. I got someone to write code for me

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Academic Integrity
• You have to write all the code you turn in
• You can discuss how to implement the assignments with
your colleagues

• You can post questions and answers that involve code

on Piazza
•E.g., how to use a particular API
• All details are in the syllabus

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Assignment Plagiarism

if (a == 1) b = 2; if (x != 1) { // empty }
else { y = 2; }

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Assignment Plagiarism
if

== =

a 1 b 2

if (a == 1) b = 2; if (x != 1) { // empty }
else { y = 2; }

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Assignment Plagiarism
if if

== = == =

a 1 b 2 x 1 y 2

if (a == 1) b = 2; if (x != 1) { // empty }
else { y = 2; }

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Assignment Plagiarism

(hundreds more pair-wise comparisons below)

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Assignment Plagiarism

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Assignment Plagiarism
•Zero grade on the assignment

• One letter drop in the final grade

• E.g., B to C or D to F

• Not sure? Struggling? ASK ON PIAZZA

• Extra credit if you do so!

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Assignment Plagiarism
•Good reasons to not
• Office hours
• Piazza (you get bonus for asking questions!)
• Resubmission possible
• You can improve a low grade by A LOT
• Original submission 30%, resubmission 100% = 65% (more than 2x improvement)
• Original submission 50%, resubmission 100% = 75%
• Original submission 80%, resubmission 100% = 90%

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Exams
• Midterm exam: 15%
• February 27th, 2024
• During class
• Final exam: 20%
• TBD (the university tells me when)
• Exams are in-person
• Everybody takes it at the same time in the same room as lectures take place

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Reading
• Required Textbooks
• The Art of Multiprocessor Programming

• No book is required to buy

• PDFs are available online
• Book available on the library
for reading online

• Research papers and slide

handouts
• Available on Piazza

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Grading - Undergrads
• Attendance: 15%

• Programming Assignments: 50%

• Midterm: 15%

• Final: 20%

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Grading - Grads
• Attendance: 10%

• Programming Assignments: 50%

• Midterm: 15%

• Final: 15%

• Research presentation: 10%

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Research Presentation
• Pick a topic about concurrency not seen in class
• One chapter from the book that we did not cover
• A research paper you are working on / you read
• A tool you want to learn more about

• Shoot a 10 minute presentation about it

• Grading:
• 25% - Define the problem
• 25% - Why trivial solutions don’t work (e.g., just add a lock)
• 25% - Describe the solution
• 25% - What is one limitation of the solution you presented

• Released after the midterm

• Select the topic by 03/02/2024 @ 5pm via private Piazza message
• Due the last week of class
• April 30th @ 5pm

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Grading - Grads
• Attendance: 10%

• Programming Assignments: 50%

• Midterm: 15%

• Final: 15%

• Research presentation: 10%

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I’m struggling, can I

come back from a
miserable first month?

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Don’t miss any class

and answer all Show up!

quizzes

Recover Multiple submissions,

automatic grade
Passing grade in all
from a failed assignments
feedback
Resubmissions

midterm Start working early

Failed midterm Oops, it happens

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Recover from a bad month

• Don’t miss any class and answer all quizzes

• Passing grade in all assignments

• Failed midterm

• Current grade

• Passing grade on the final exam

• End grade

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Class Website / Syllabus

https://cs474-uic.github.io/cs454-s24-site/

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Announcements
• All announcements will be posted on Piazza
• No announcements on Blackboard
• No announcements via email
• Only individual communications from me to you
• Some announcements will be repeated on the class website
• External class visibility
• Not a good source for class-related updates
• Useful for syllabus, planning, calendar, schedule

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Self-Care
• Sleep, eat, exercise
• Take time off work
• “Pomodoro technique” to focus on tasks
•https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique
• “Getting things done” for time management
•https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
• 7 ways to maximize misery
•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o
•Book “How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use” by
Paterson PhD, Randy J.

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Resources
•Wellness center:
• https://wellnesscenter.uic.edu/resources-and-services/
•Free food pantry
•Free wellness supplies
•Stress relief
•Homelessness, addiction help

•UIC Counseling Center:

•https://counseling.uic.edu/

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Office Hours
• On Zoom
• Same as online lectures

• Prof Pina (me)

• Hybrid in-person/online:
• SEO 1340
• Take the elevator to the 12th floor, go up one flight of stairs, walk to the end of the corridor
• Thursdays 2pm to 3pm
• I’ll also be on Zoom, but people in person take precedence

• Online:
• Wednesdays 3pm-4pm, and Fridays 11am-12noon
• Zoom

• Joseph Wiseman (TA) (not me)

• Hybrid in-person/online:
• Location TBD
• Monday 6pm-7pm, Tuesday 12h30noon-1h30pm
• Joseph will also be on Zoom, but people in person take precedence

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Coffee with the professor

• Let’s meet and talk about stuff
• Not class/course stuff
• Biking, pets, Netflix, CS jobs/PhD, food, etc.

• This Thursday, 2pm to 3pm

• Remote only, instead of regular office hours

• Come say hi in the first couple of weeks

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Office Hours
• On BB Collab
• Same as online lectures
Can you make it to
• Prof Pina (me)
• Wednesdays, 3pm to 4pm
office hours?
• Thursdays 2pm to 3pm a) Yes for all
• Fridays, 11am to 12noon b) Yes for many
• More upon request c) Yes for one
• Extra before assignment deadline (Friday) d) No for any

• Joseph (TA) (not me)

• Mondays, 6pm to 7pm
• Tuesdays, 12h30noon to 1h30pm

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Netiquette
1. Use professional language. Always say please and thank you and leave text messaging
abbreviations out of messages and posts. Be positive and constructive in your feedback to replies
to students.
2. Try not to use all caps--it comes across as shouting to the reader. Use "bold" formatting or use
quotes to emphasize a word or phrase. It may be okay at times for headings or to place emphasis
on a web page, but try to avoid it when communicating on discussion boards or corresponding
with others electronically.
3. User proper language and titles – no slang or profanity. Even if a word is one you consider to be
"not so bad," it could be offensive to others.
4. Review posts and messages before saving. Check for grammar and spelling errors and restate
your message when necessary.
5. Ask for clarification. If you do not understand an assignment or feedback from me, please ask for
clarification. I will do my best to word my posts/messages as clearly as possible, but in an online
environment, I cannot "see" if my messages are being understood.
6. Consider turning on your camera/microphone on interactions with the instructors. You are
encouraged to turn on your camera and microphone during live lectures, and even more so during
interactions with the instructor during office hours. The instructors will always have their camera
and microphone on.

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Lecture slides
• Made available ahead of the lecture on Piazza’s resources

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Assignment
• Goal: Understand how to:
0
• Start an assignment
• Work on an assignment
• Submit an assignment
• Check your grade
• Trivial Java code // Each student has their own code
System.out.println("987123817");
• Different for each student
• You have to check the autograder to see what is your solution
• Accept assignment at: https://classroom.github.com/a/o6KW5LaF
• Follow instructions on the Assignment 0 intro video, on Echo360
• You must submit Assignment 0 to receive any grade

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Take-Home Quiz
•Goal: Become familiar with the academic integrity and syllabus
•Take-home quiz on Gradescope
•Due on Saturday 01/20
•No grade for CS454 without finishing this quiz
•100% answers correct required
•Unlimited automatic submissions
•Got one answer wrong? Re-read, resubmit
•Got two wrong? See above x2, no penalty

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Questions?
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Tasks

Before Wednesday
• Check access to Piazza
• Check access to Gradescope
• Add iClicker for attendance

Saturday 01/20

Thursday

One week from this Sunday

• Turn in take-home quiz
• Finish Assignment 0
• Register on Github and fill form

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