New first-year unit for 2006. Lecture attendance is recommended by some (although not all) students, even if you have a strong C background, if only for administrative information about the unit. Content covered is All The Usual Programming Stuff (see the [http://handbooks.uwa.edu.au/units/cits/cits1210 handbook entry] for specifics), plus you learn how to write makefiles and a few simple POSIX functions. Quite comprehensive look at the language if you put the time in.
ChrisMcDonald was ludicrously active on the help1210 forum in 2006, having posted > 1000 entries attempting to help students. The forum occasionally got over 100 messages a day close to assessments, with a surprising amount focused on actual unit content. Beware, however, the older UCC members who enjoy trolling the forum, particularly around assignment due dates.
You can quite easily fail the entire unit by messing up the first project or test - not because they are weighted heavily, but because it's in the unit rules that you must get an average of 50% across the two projects, and 50% across the two examination components. Watch out for this. Though this unit rule remains on the CITS1210 unit page, it was not enforced in 2006. As with other language specific units in CSSE, tests and assessments also expect use of the language to solve simple CS problems (e.g. permutation searching, the UbiquitousPalendromicQuestion etc.) rather than just requiring technical accuracy of the language.
Overall a well taught unit, although will be pretty full-on if you don't know any C already.
Taken by LuigiBarone and ChrisMcDonald
[http://undergraduate.csse.uwa.edu.au/units/CITS1210/ Unit website]
[http://handbooks.uwa.edu.au/units/cits/cits1210 Handbook entry]
