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    COURSE SYLLABUS

    COP 4530 / CGS 5425, Sections 1, 2, and 3
    Data Structures, Algorithms, and Generic Programming

    Fall Semester 2003


Prerequisites:

COP 3330: Object-Oriented Programming, and MAD 2104: Discrete Mathematics. Pre or Corequisite: CDA 3101: Computer Organization. The pre-requisites will not be waived.

Class Schedule:

Activity Day Time Location
Lecture MW 3:35 pm - 4:50 pm MCH 201
Recitation - Sec 01 M 8:00 am - 8:50 am MCH 107
Recitation - Sec 02 M 9:05 am - 9:55 am MCH 107
Recitation - Sec 03 M 11:15 am - 12:05 pm MCH 107

Contact information:

Instructor: Ashok Srinivasan
Office hours: Mon 5 pm - 6 pm, and Thu 4 pm - 5 pm. I am also usually available in my office, and you can feel free to meet me in the afternoons, except before class Monday and Wednesday. Alternatively, you may schedule an appointment, either by email or by phone.
Office: 169, Love Building
Phone: 644-0559
Email: asriniva@cs.fsu.edu
Teaching Assistant: Nobuyasu Fukuhara Teaching Assistant: Zhiqian Hu
Office hours: W 1 - 3 pm Office hours: Tue 3 - 5 pm
Office: CS Majors lab Office: CS Majors lab
Phone: TBA Phone: TBA
Email: nff0150@garnet.acns.fsu.edu Email: zhiqiahu@cs.fsu.edu

Course material:

Required Material:
Optional reference material:
Online resources:
Computer accounts:

Course rationale:

So far, you have acquired proficiency in programming. This course will start the process of your transformation from a programmer to a computer scientist. One of the important tasks of a computer scientist is to make efficient use of computational resources. This course will teach you about different ways of organizing the data to facilitate such efficient use, and will also discuss efficient techniques to perform some fundamental operations in computer science. A subsequent course on Algorithms, COP 4531, will teach you to use the techniques discussed in this course to solve commonly encountered computer science problems efficiently. Both these courses will also teach you to analyze the efficiency, and prove the correctness, of your program in a mathematically rigorous manner. Material you learn in these two courses is critical to your becoming a good software developer later.

Course description:

This IS NOT a course in object-oriented programming!

This is a course about efficiency of programs and programming. In this course, we will pursue various meanings of "efficient". It is efficient to:

Furthermore, in many applications, correctness is the ultimate form of efficiency, while in others efficiency means getting the best result possible in the limited time (or space) available.

Efficiency can happen at different levels. Take code:

All these ideas of efficiency are central to this course. It is also true that all of these ideas of efficiency are fundamental to the design and specification of the C++ language, which is one of many reasons C++ is a great choice for the core language in our curriculum and for this course.

The three topics mentioned in the title of the course are:

Data structures
We will discuss data structures in abstract terms, as abstract data types (ADTs), but we will also implement them concretely, using C++.
Algorithms
Algorithms are formalizations of processes that result in predictable and desirable outcomes. They are used in a variety of contexts. Particularly, data structures are made usable by implementing algorithms for searching, sorting, and indexing the structures.
Generic programming
Generic programming is the science of component re-use. We will explore coding for re-use of both data structures and algorithms in C++. Coding for re-use and re-use of code are important aspects of software engineering.

We will also have several substantial programming projects that involve the implementation and use of data structures, algorithms, and generic programming.

Learning objectives:

At the end of this course, you should be able to accomplish the objectives given below. Furthermore, since the tasks mentioned below are those that every computer scientist is expected to be familiar with, it will help you if you learn it well enough that you have a permanent working knowledge of the material discussed.

Data Structures Algorithms

You should be able to accomplish the following:

Generic Programming

You should be able to accomplish the following:

Attaining these objectives will enable you to:

Your responsibilities:

Deadlines and instructions
Following the same professional guidelines that you will encounter in business, there are strict deadlines, and instructions that must be followed. Please read instructions carefully, and schedule your activities so that you submit assignments well in time. You should check your garnet email account and the class web page regularly, and note other announcements, on-line and in class.

Participation
I will ask you questions in class: (i) review questions on the previous lecture, and (ii) questions on the material currently being discussed, in order for me to obtain feedback on how well you understand the material. You should be prepared to answer these questions, and should also participate by asking questions, suggesting ideas, and performing in-class assignments that I give. Of course, you cannot participate in class unless you attend it!

Group work
There will be two types of group work in this course. (i) Study groups: We will organize study groups, which will assist you in understanding lecture material, and in preparing for lectures. More details on this are available at: www.cs.fsu.edu/~asriniva/courses/cop4530/studygroups.html. (ii) Group assignments: You will have at least one group programming assignment. You should participate in both types of group activities and make a fair contribution to the effort of the group. You can learn more about working in groups at: http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~asriniva/courses/cop4530/groupwork.html.

Reading assignments
Lecture slides will be available on Blackboard, along with a narrative that explains the details. You should read these, and also practice with example codes that we supply. New material builds on the old ones. So, if you have trouble with some material, please get help through the discussion board on Blackboard, or from a teaching assistant or me, before the next class. You should also peruse the material for the next lecture, and be prepared to answer questions on it, which I will provide in advance. I expect that you will need to spend between one and two hours studying, for each lecture. The programming assignments and exams will consume additional time. The following learning components are important, and you may want to verify if you do satisfactorily on these, after studying the material.

  • Knowledge: Do you understand the terminology used? Given a data-structure and some data or operations, can you tell how the data is represented? Given an algorithm and its input, can you describe the steps carried out by the algorithm and the output? Given a data structure or algorithm, can you write C++ code for it? Given a data-structure and some operations on it, or an algorithm, can you give the time and space complexity?
  • Understanding: If some aspect of a data-structure, an operation on it, or an algorithm, were modified, can you analyze the time complexity? If some aspect of an operation on a data-structure, or an algorithm, were modified, can you prove or disprove its correctness? In order to answer these questions, you need to understand how each component of an algorithm affects the time complexity, and why each component of an algorithm is important for its correctness. After you learn about what an algorithm does (and have, thus, acquired "knowledge"), it will be useful for you to think of different things that can be changed, and see how that will affect the time complexity or correctness.
  • Application: Given a real life, or artificial, problem, can you decide on suitable data structures and algorithms from those we have studied, to solve that problem?
  • Creativity: Can you modify algorithms that we have studied, to make them more efficient for special situations? Given a problem for which our algorithm is not valid as designed, can you modify the algorithm to solve the problem, and then prove the correctness of your solution, and analyze its time complexity? Can you use multiple data structure and algorithms from those that we have studied, to solve a new problem?

Programming assignments
You will have six programming assignments in this course, and you will have around two weeks to work on each one. At least one of these (the third one), will be a group project. The projects will be announced on the Blackboard course web site under "Assignments". We will also discuss it during the recitations. Further information is given in Chapter 1 of the Lectures, and along with individual assignments.

The project schedule is as follows:

Project    Release Date    Due Date
1 Sep 1 Sep 12
2 Sep 15 Sep 26
3 Sep 29 Oct 17
4 Oct 20 Oct 31
5 Nov 3 Nov 14
6 Nov 17 Dec 5
Exam schedule
Exam    Coverage Dates    Coverage Material    Exam Date   
Quiz Pre-requisite material COP 3330 material and Chapters 2 Sep 3
Midterm 1 Aug 25 - Sep 28    Chapters 1 - 7 Sep 29
Midterm 2 Sep 29 - Nov 2 Chapters 8 - 15 Nov 3
Final Aug 25 - Dec 5 Chapters 1 - 20 Dec 11 (10 am - 12 noon)

Note that the final exam is comprehensive -- it includes material from the entire semester.

Course outline:

Week Lecture Chapter Assignments
1 Recitation No recitation this week None
25 Aug 1. Introduction
27 Aug 2. Strings
2 Recitation Labor day -- no class. None
1 Sep Labor day -- no class.
3 Sep 3. Bit vector, Quiz
3 Recitation Discuss assignment 1 Assignment 1 due Sep 12
8 Sep 4. Hashing
10 Sep 5. Templates
4 Recitation Discuss assignment 2 None
15 Sep 6. Vectors
17 Sep 7. Algorithm analysis
5 Recitation Lecture review, discuss assignment 2 Assignment 2 due Sep 26
22 Sep 7. Algorithm analysis
24 Sep Midterm 1 Review
6 Recitation Midterm review, discuss assignment 3 None
29 Sep Midterm 1
1 Oct 8. Linked list
7 Recitation Discuss assignment 3 and midterm 1 None
6 Oct 9. Generic containers
8 Oct 10. ADT, stack, queue
8 Recitation Lecture review, discuss assignment 3 Assignment 3 due Oct 17
13 Oct 11. Function classes
15 Oct 12. Generic algorithms
9 Recitation Discuss assignment 4 None
20 Oct 13. Iterators
22 Oct 14. Sets
10 Recitation Lecture review, discuss assignment 4 Assignment 4 due Oct 31
27 Oct 15. Associative containers
29 Oct Midterm 2 review
11 Recitation Discuss assignment 5, midterm review None
3 Nov Midterm 2
5 Nov 16. Sets and maps
12 Recitation Lecture review, discuss assignment 5 Assignment 5 due Nov 14
10 Nov 17. Trees 1
12 Nov 17. Trees 1
13 Recitation Discuss assignment 6 None
17 Nov 17. Trees 1
19 Nov 18. Trees 2
14 Recitation Lecture review, discuss assignment 6
24 Nov 18. Trees 2
26 Nov 19. Trees 3
15 Recitation Lecture review, discuss assignment 6 Assignment 6 due Dec 5
1 Dec 20. Trees 4
3 Dec Finals review
16 11 Dec Final exam 10 am - 12 noon

Grading criteria:

The overall grade for COP 4530 is an average of two equally weighted parts: (i) Exams and class participation, and (ii) Assignments. Exams consist of a quiz, two midterm exams, and a final exam. Class participation consists of answering questions correctly in class, and other positive contributions, discussed in greater detail at http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~asriniva/courses/cop4530/classparticipation.html. Assignments consist of six (6) programming projects.

There are 1000 total points that may be earned in the course, distributed as shown in Table 1. You must earn at least 350 exam + class participation points, and 350 assignment points, to get a course grade of C or better. Once meeting this constraint, the final grade is determined using Table 2.

    Table 1: Course Points
    Item Points/Item Item Total Total
    Class
    Participation
    75 75
    Quiz 25 25
    Midterm 1, 2 100 200
    Final Exam 200 200 500
    Assignment 1 - 2 50 100
    Assignment 3 - 6 100 400 1000
    Table 2: Letter Grades
    Points Grade
    920 - 1000 A
    900 - 919 A-
    880 - 899 B+
    820 - 879 B
    800 - 819 B-
    780 - 799 C+
    720 - 779 C
    700 - 719 C-
    680 - 699 D+
    620 - 679 D
    600 - 619 D-
    0 - 599 F

NOTE: You must earn at least 350 points in both components: (i) Exams and class participation, and (ii) Assignments, to be awarded a course grade of C or better. For example, if you obtain 500 points on the assignments, but only 300 in the rest, then you will not get a B-. Instead, you will get a C-, since that is the highest grade for which you will be eligible without obtaining 350 points in each of the two components, assignments and exam+class participation.

Programming assignment Assessment
Programming assignments will be assessed using Table 3 as a guide.

The first four criteria will be assessed objectively through automated testing. A member of the instructional staff will then assess for the latter three criteria. Please note carefully the following important items:

Course policies:

Attendance Policy:

The university requires attendance in all classes, and it is also important to your learning. The attendance record may be provided to deans who request it. If your grade is just a little below the cutoff for a higher grade, your attendance will be one of the factors that we consider, in deciding whether to "bump" you up to the higher grade. Missing three or fewer lectures will be considered good attendance. In rare cases, such as medical needs or jury duty, absences may be excused with appropriate documentation. You should let me know in advance, when possible, and submit the documentation I seek. You should make up for any materials missed due to absences.

Missed exam Policy:

A missed exam will be recorded as a grade of zero. We will follow the university rules regarding missed final exams (see http://registrar.fsu.edu/dir_class/fall/exam_schedule.htm), for all the exams, including the final exam.

Late Assignment Policy:

In order to enable us to provide timely solutions to assignments, we have the following policy regarding submission of late assignments.

Grade of 'I' Policy:

The grade of 'I' will be assigned only under the following exceptional circumstances:

Professional ethics:

You will gain confidence in your ability to design and implement algorithms only when you write the code yourself. On the other hand, one does learn a lot through discussions with ones peers. In order to balance these two goals, I give below a list of things that you may, and may not, do.

Things you may not do: You should not copy code from others. This includes directly copying the files, replacing variable names in their code with different names, altering indentation, or making other modifications to others' code, and submitting it as your own. (You may also wish to note that many of the modifications that make codes look very different in a higher level language, yield lower level representations that are very close, and hence easy to detect.) Furthermore, you should take steps to ensure that others cannot copy code from you -- in particular, you should have all permissions on assignment files and directories set off for others.

Things you may do: You may discuss specific problems related to use of the computer, useful utilities, and some good programming practices, with others. For example, you may ask others about how to submit your homework, or how to use the debugger or text editor. Honor Code: Students are expected to uphold the academic honor code published in "The Florida State University Bulletin" and the "Student Handbook". Please read the provisions of the Academic Honor Code: http://www.fsu.edu/Books/Student-Handbook/codes/honor.html. Also read the section on "Honor code" below.

Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is "representing another's work or any part thereof, be it published or unpublished, as ones own. For example, plagiarism includes failure to use quotation marks or other conventional markings around material quoted from any source" (Florida State University General Bulletin 1998-1999, p. 69). Failure to document material properly, that is, to indicate that the material came from another source, is also considered a form of plagiarism. Copying someone else's program, and turning it in as if it were your own work, is also considered plagiarism.

SYLLABUS CHANGE POLICY:

This syllabus is a guide for the course and is subject to change with advanced notice.


Last modified: 28 Aug 2003