This course aims to teach methods for designing, analyzing, and programming algorithms and data structures. It focuses on fundamental concepts that can be applied across problem domains, programming languages, and computer architectures. There will be a significant programming component, which will be in Java.
Topics covered in this class include: problems and abstractions, contracts and interfaces, performance analysis (asymptotic notation and analysis), basic data structures (stacks, queues, lists, double-ended queues), sorting, searching (linear search, binary search, collection), divide and conquer techniques, (search) trees, hashing, basic graph representations, and graph algorithms.
LaTeX turns out to be one of the best options for creating your PDF handin. Here is a template, which will look like this after you compile it.
LaTeX is built from Don Knuth's TeX typesetting language, and has grown through community support to be both extremely powerful and easy to use. There are any number of excellent resources about how to use LaTeX; a few are listed here for your convenience.
LaTeX source files can be created with any text editor, so emacs and vim are excellent choices. There are several LaTeX specific IDEs that you may find more comfortable to use, depending on your working environment:
Your final letter grade will be determined as follows:
Students are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated and will be reported to the Academic Dishonesty committee.
In this course, we interpret collaboration very liberally. You may work with other students. However, each student must write up and hand in his or her assignment separately. Let us repeat: you need to write your own code, answers, and proof. You must not look at or copy someone else's code or writeups. The fact that you can recreate the solution from memory is taken as proof that you actually understood it, and you may actually be interviewed about your answers.
Unless stated otherwise, assignments are due electronically at 11:59PM Bangkok time. You are, however, encouraged to hand them in well ahead of the deadline. For the whole term, you are allotted FIVE (5) late days at no grade penalty. But at most ONE (1) late day may be used per assignment. If you have used up these late days or used more than one for a given assignment, your submission will not be graded.