In putting together the material for this course, I tried to keep two things in mind. First, was the material relevant? To the course outline? To university goals? To my own goals? To the students? (Quite a balancing, and filtering, act.) The second was the level of the course — CPSC 100. I tried. And, in doing so, I will have opened myself up for some argument.
I thought of this sidebar while writing a quiz question. (Spoiler alert) The notes say that without hardware, software is useless. Is it though? An algorithm is a plan for solving a problem – that's certainly useful. A program might be called an implementation of an algorithm, basically a very detailed and strictly codified version of an algorithm. To my way of thinking, that's about as much use as a sonnet in Dalmatian — the dead language (but "dog-speak" works just as well).
If your an instructor reading these notes: I know I didn't make all the right choices; who does? I would love to hear constructive criticism, but not about minutiae and not a pedantic rant. Avoiding those, and a dislike of babysitting, is why I didn't just build this inside of Wikiversity. (Why not port it over, then we can all "have at it"?)
If your a student reading these notes: Everyone reading this will probably have enough knowledge to have written one or more sections. I've no way to sort that out. You just have to deal with some elementary material. The reading, assignments and quizzes should all be easy — as long as you remember this is CPSC 100. If you know enough to question whether software is useless without hardware (for pedantic reasons), then you also know what answer was expected on the quiz. Deal.
Not a student or an instructor? (The Web is a big place.) Welcome to my classroom. In here, you will find what I thought should be included, presented in a way I thought would help students learn. Unfortunately, the biases that come from teaching primarily U.S. students are inherent in some of the lessons. Occasionally, especially in sidebars, you are obviously reading my opinions. But, opinions have a way of infusing themselves into what we say also. (For example, above I implied that wiki was a Hawaiian word meaning quick to argue.) My apology to anyone offended! All opinions are my own and are not necessarily supported by my colleagues or employer.
Your offended by the (sometimes vast) over simplifications? (Like the network is an input device, perhaps.) Chances are you know too much to gain anything by reading this. I'm promoting you to instructor status – go back and read that paragraph.
Your offended by oh-so Web 1.0 formatting of the notes. I'm sorry about that also. It came down to a decision of whether I would waste more time becoming fluent in CSS or using table templates. I'm not at all sure I chose wisely, but decision taken. You get to read the paragraph for instructors also.