Computer Science 501
Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis
Fall 2015, The College of Saint Rose
Instructor and Course Information
Instructor: | Dr. James D. Teresco, Albertus Hall 400-6, (518) 485-3755 |
Electronic mail: | terescoj AT strose.edu (best contact method) |
Twitter: | @JTeresco_StR_CS |
Class URL: |
[Link]
|
Class hour: | Wednesday 6:00-8:30, Albertus 205 |
Office hours: | Wednesday 1:30-2:30, Thursday 2:00-3:30, Friday 1:30-2:30, and by appointment |
|
Texts
The 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.
So there are no books to buy! You may print or view the text in
Portable Document Format. Other readings will also be assigned from
freely available sources.
Course News
- Thank you for all of your hard work this semester.
Submission Guidelines
Your submissions for lab assignments 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.
- Lab Questions
- The answers to all "lab questions" for a
particular lab should be included within a single plain-text or PDF
file named labn.txt or labn.pdf, as
appropriate, where n is the lab number. The file should start
with your name and the lab number. If you use plain text, your file
should be appropriately line-wrapped for easy reading in a window or
on a printed page with a width of 80 characters.
Note: for lab questions that ask you to draw a memory diagram, you
have a few options. You may attempt to represent the memory with
plain text, but that is difficult to construct and read. Ideally, you
would use a drawing program and submit in your PDF file, but you are also
permitted to draw the diagram on paper and submit a scan or
photograph, as long as the diagram is legible in that form.
- Practice Programs
- Your submissions for practice programs 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, but no printout needs to be submitted.
You are of course encouraged to practice good documentation,
formatting, and style for these 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 submit a
printout of your program.
Related Information and Links
- Web Repository of Class Examples
- Examples are on mogul.strose.edu as well: use an ssh client like PuTTY or bitvise to connect.
- Style Guide for CSC 501 Programs
- Saint Rose CS Resources:
- 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
- To use BlueJ for class assignments, you will also need
to get the structure package library
(bailey.jar)
- download and save this file but do not try to open it.
- After putting bailey.jar in a reasonable
place (like your folder for class work), you need to tell
BlueJ where to find it. To do that, start BlueJ. Open the
BlueJ menu and select "Preferences". Then select
"Libraries". Click the "Add" button. This should open a
file browser. Find bailey.jar and click
"Choose".
- Another preference that I recommend that you set is on
the "Editor" tab. Select "Display line numbers".
- [Textbook and Structure Package Documentation]
- A copy of the Structure Package source code is available
on mogul at /home/cs501/structure/src.
- A copy of the source code for all of the examples
from Bailey are available on mogul
in /home/cs501/bailey-examples/eg/structure.
- 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.
- Very brief but very useful references, courtesy of Duane Bailey
at Williams College:
- Less relevant, but more fun:
[XKCD]
[Dilbert]
[Fox Trot]