Computer Science 210
Data Structures

Fall 2018, Siena College

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Instructor and Course Information

Texts

The primary text for the course is CSIS 210: Data Structures (an online, interactive text from zyBooks) by Lysecky, Lizarraga, and Vahid. See your email for information about how to purchase your access. The supplementary text for the course is Java Structures: Data Structures in Java for the Principled Programmer, "Root 7" Edition (a free online textbook) by Duane Bailey. This more traditional text has been made freely available as a PDF by the author. Other readings may also be assigned from freely available sources.

Course News

• Thanks everyone!
• Using git on your own computer
  • If you have a Mac set up to run Java, you likely already have everything you need. You can issue the same commands used at the Git Bash prompt in the lab to your Mac's Terminal application.
  • If you have Windows, you likely will need to install Git Bash.
• There are several error messages and other situations that arise commonly when using the Git and GitHub workflow we are using. A document describing common situations and their solutions can be found here. Please make corrections, suggestions, or requests for solutions to additional problems by submitting Issues and/or Pull Requests to that file's repository.
• To change your default git editor from vim to the more user-friendly nano, you can issue this command in the terminal where you run git:

  git config --global core.editor "nano"
  

• Setting up your BlueJ environment to use the Structure package
  1. Download bailey.jar (use "save link as" or similar) and save it to a convenient place on your computer.
  2. In BlueJ's Preferences, Choose "Libraries", then "Add" and choose the file you just downloaded. Restart the virtual machine or restart BlueJ to load the structure package "Jar file".
  3. Try it out by creating a program that imports structure5.Vector and constructs one. The Vector class works like the ArrayList class.
• Tutoring is available in RB 350, Sunday through Thursday evenings. Please feel free to take advantage of this service!

Submission Guidelines

Your submissions for labs and problem sets will include several types of items. Different requirements apply to each, as described below. It is important that you adhere to file format and naming requirements to facilitate grading. Submissions that do not meet these requirements will not be accepted.

Written Questions

These will appear on labs and problem sets. Responses will be English text, Java code fragments, or diagrams.

Output Captures

You will sometimes be asked to capture the output of one of your programs in a file to be included in your submission. The file name to use for each such task will be specified in the question.

Practice Programs

Your submissions for practice programs should be complete, functional Java programs. These are graded primarily on correctness, but you will be required to include your name at the top of the program, and you must use the file name specified. You will normally demonstrate practice programs and submit them electronically. For some lab tasks, these will involve writing methods that are required to pass a set of test cases, with the score based on the number of tests passed.

You are of course encouraged to practice good documentation, formatting, and style for practice programs, but the grade will depend only on correctness (and having your name in a properly-named file).

Programming Assignments

These are the most formal submissions and will be graded on design, documentation, style, correctness, and efficiency (where appropriate). A good design will use an appropriate algorithm, data structures, and language constructs to solve the problem. A well-documented program will include a comment at the top of each file that includes your name, the assignment, and a description of the contents of the file. There should also be comments for each constructor or method definition (including a brief description of the method's purpose, its parameters, and return value), each variable or group of related variables, and any section of code whose purpose and/or behavior is not obvious from context or the code itself. Style requirements include appropriate formatting (sufficient and consistent indentation, spacing, and punctuation, wrapping long lines of code), good use of named constants, and meaningful and appropriate names for variables, methods, constants, and parameters. Correctness, of course, requires the expected output be produced for a set of test inputs (which will normally not be provided in advance). Efficiency will be more important in some assignments than others, and requires that the program does not do any unnecessary computation or use any more memory than needed. And, of course, you must use the file name(s) specified. You will normally be required to demonstrate programming assignments, submit your source code electronically, and in some cases, submit a printout of your program.

Related Information and Links

• Style Guide for CSIS 210 Programs
• METAL: Map-Based Educational Tools for Algorithm Learning, which will provide some real-world data sets and visualization capabilties for examples and labs
  • Highway Data Examiner (HDX)
  • METAL Graph Repository
• Java and the Structure package
  • Java API documentation
  • Java download page to install or update Java on your own computer
  • BlueJ home page for documentation and installation on your own computer
  • [Textbook and Structure Package Documentation]
  • Important note: you should never need to make a copy of the structure source code in your project to make use of it. Use the jar file and set up your Java environment to find it correctly.
• Here's a link to examples from one of my old Java introductory courses that you might find useful.
• Less relevant, but more fun: [XKCD] [Dilbert] [Fox Trot]