| This page last modified on 12 May 2010. |
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But in the end, it’s algorithms: If you look at things like fast Fourier transform, it went from N squared to N log n. There is no way you can make an improvement in computer architecture that comes close to that.
Bruce Shriver and Peter Capek, Just Curious: An Interview with John Cocke,
IEEE Computer, December 1999
The class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Howard Hall C1 (the cs conference room) from 6 p.m. to 7:50 p.m. Class starts on Tuesday, 19 January 2010 and ends on Thursday, 29 April. There is no class on Tuesday, 9 March and Thursday, 11 March. Monday, 29 March is the last day to withdraw from class with a W on your transcript.
All grades are kept with one digit of precision to the right of the decimal point and 0.05 rounded up. No grades are adjusted to a curve; that means, for example, that 89.9 is always a B+, never an A-.
For CS 305: for CS 503:
95 ≤ A 90 ≤ A- < 95 86.6 ≤ B+ < 90 83.3 ≤ B < 86.6 80 ≤ B- < 83.3 76.6 ≤ C+ < 80 73.3 ≤ C < 76.6 70 ≤ C- < 73.3 60 ≤ D < 70 F < 60
95 ≤ A 90 ≤ A- < 95 86.6 ≤ B+ < 90 83.3 ≤ B < 86.6 80 ≤ B- < 83.3 76.6 ≤ C+ < 80 73.3 ≤ C < 76.6 70 ≤ C- < 73.3 F < 70
| 60% | assignment grades |
| 40% | quiz grades |
The quiz- and assignment-grade averages are straight, unweighted averages.
The mid-term grades.
The final grades.
There are four quizzes, one quiz for each section after the first section; see the syllabus for the schedule. Quizzes are given in class, and are closed book with no notes; calculators and computers will not be necessary. The quizzes are cumulative, covering everything taught up to and including the class before the quiz. Quizzes should take no more than an hour to complete, and are given in the first hour of class. Quiz answers will be made available off the syllabus.
There are no midterms or final exams. Mid-term grades are computed from the straight, unweighted average of what ever grades have accrued by the day mid-term grades are due (Monday, 29 March).
There is no textbook for this class; readings will come from class notes made available on the syllabus. There are many data structures and algorithm books around for extra readings, all more or less the same (and generally not too good). Here’s a small annotated bibliography of books either noteable or close at hand (or both).
This is a programming course, and you’ll be programming in Java. In addition, the course will cover (possibly) new Java features in just enough detail to get by in data structures and algorithms. You should have at hand at least one Java programming language book to help you recover the old details persue futher the new details. The book from CS 175 and 176 should be fine. Also recommended are Core Java 2, Vol. 1 — Fundamentals by Cay Horstmann and Gary Cornell, Sun Microsystems Press, 2008. and Java in a Nutshell by David Flanagan, O’Reilly Media, 2005.
Mail relevant to the class are stored in a hyper-mail archive. If your message is of general interest to the class, I’ll store it, suitably stripped of identification and along with my answer, in the archive.
http://tinyurl.com/yc684sb ). I’ll make the class notes, assignments, and
quizzes available off the syllabus ( http://tinyurl.com/ycfcyzb ); you should get
in the habit of checking the syllabus regularly.
identi.ca/mucs305 ) or twitter ( twitter.com/mucs305 ). The same messages appear on both services.
My attendance policy applies only to lecture attendance; it does not apply to other kinds of attendance which may be required for the course. Repeated failures to meet the attendance expectations set for tests, meetings, projects, labs or other forms of course work will have a bad influence on your grade.
Monmouth University does have a class attendance policy, which you can find in the Academic Information chapter of the Student Handbook. To the extent that I need to keep the record straight, I will take attendance. Attendance lists, however, are entirely for the University's benefit; I will make no use of them in grading.
First, the only complaint that matters is that something got marked wrong when it was actually right. When you come to complain, be prepared to present, in explicit detail, what it is you did and why you think it's right.
Second, complaints about a particular test or assignment are only valid until
the next test or assignment is due; after that point the book is permanently
closed on all previous test or assignment grades.
Late Assignments
Assignments must be turned in by their due date; assignments turned in after
their due date are late. You should contact me as soon as possible if you need
to negotiate a due-date extension. The longer you wait to negotiate, the less
likely it is you'll be successful; in particular, you have almost no chance of
getting an extension if you try for one the day before the due date, and you
have no chance of getting an extention on the due date.
A late assignment is penalized five points a day for each day it's late. I use a 24-hour clock running from midnight to midnight to measure days; note this means that an assignment handed in the day after it's due is penalized ten points: five for the day it was due and five for the next day.
A make-up test must be scheduled to be taken by the date of the test following the missed test (or the final exam if you miss the last test). If a missed test is not made up by the time of the next test, you get a zero for the missed test.
There will be only one make up given per missed test. If more than one person misses the same test, those people will have to coordinate among themselves to pick a mutually agreeable date for the make up.
FreeTechBooks' list of on-line data structures and algorithm books.
Softpanorama’s old but wide ranging link page for data structures and algorithms.
Algosort’s link page to algorithm pages.
The last time I taught this course.
| This page last modified on 12 May 2010. |
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