CSCI 180 Spring 2009 Data Structures Michael H Goldwasser Saint Louis University Handout Syllabus Monday 12 January 2009 CSCI 180 Data Structures Contents 1 Overview 1 1 Catalog Description 1 2 Prerequisites 1 3 Detailed Description 2 2 2 2 2 Course Administration 2 1 The Staff 2 2 Class Meetings 2 3 Textbook 3 3 3 3 3 Online Resources 3 1 CSCI 180 Web Page cs slu edu goldwasser 180 3 2 Electronic Assignment Submission 3 3 Email with Instructor 4 4 4 4 4 Graded Work 4 1 Homework Assignments 15 4 2 Lab Assignments 15 4 3 Programming Assignments 30 4 4 Exams 40 4 5 Extra Credit 4 6 Course Grades 4 7 Academic Integrity 4 8 Late Policies 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 5 Additional Information 5 1 Students with Disabilities or Special Needs 5 2 Tutoring Resources at SLU 5 3 Computing Resources at SLU 8 8 8 8 2 1 1 1 CSCI 180 Spring 2009 Handout Syllabus Overview Catalog Description The design implementation and use of data structures Principles of abstraction encapsulation and modularity to guide in the creation of robust adaptable reusable and efficient structures Specific data types to include stacks queues lists priority queues dictionaries trees and graphs 1 2 Prerequisites The official prerequisite is one of CSCI 146 or CSCI 150 as well as one of either CSCI 140 MATH 135 or MATH 266 1 3 Detailed Description This is an undergraduate course that is a follow up to an introductory programming course The goal of that first course can be viewed as gaining the ability to write computer programs for accomplishing tasks The key in that course was that programs must work correctly for the task at hand In this course we will focus on the fact that there are actually many different ways to correctly solve a particular problem and that these different methods may vary greatly in efficiency and adaptability What we will find is that writing a good program is not as simple as starting with a correct program and then improving it Instead the quality of a program is most determined by key thoughts and decisions that take place long before the first line of code might be written Relevant issues include the choice of data structures that are used to organize all of the information within a program and the structure and level of generality which allow components of a program to be better maintained reused and adapted In hand with this emphasis on writing good programs and designing useful data structures the course will reinforce aspects of object oriented programming using the C programming language Since the majority of students will enter this course having used Python in CSCI 150 we do not assume any familiarity with C at the onset of this course In the early parts of the course we will draw comparisons between these two languages to help in the transition CSCI 180 Spring 2009 Handout Syllabus 2 2 1 3 Course Administration The Staff Instructor Dr Michael Goldwasser Email goldwamh slu edu Web http cs slu edu goldwasser Office Ritter Hall 006 Telephone 314 977 7039 Office hours Mondays 1 00 2 00pm Wednesdays 3 10 4 00pm Fridays 1 00 2 00pm or by appointment Please make sure to take advantage of office hours as they offer a wonderful opportunity for individual interaction 2 2 Class Meetings The Lectures The material will be presented in four weekly lectures Attendance is expected and class participation is most welcome These meetings will offer learning opportunities that cannot be recreated purely from readings That said for those who miss a lecture information on the lecture topic can often be found on the course schedule web page Time Mon Tue Wed Fri 10 00 10 50am Place Ritter Hall 121 2 3 Textbook The required textbook for this course is Title Authors Publisher ISBN 13 ISBN Website Data Structures and Algorithms in C Michael T Goodrich Roberto Tamassia and David M Mount John Wiley Sons 2004 978 0 471 20208 0 0 471 20208 8 cpp datastructures net 4 3 3 1 CSCI 180 Spring 2009 Handout Syllabus Online Resources CSCI 180 Web Page cs slu edu goldwasser 180 With the exception of the first day s printed handouts most of the information for this course will be distributed only by means of the course web page This web site will contain all assignments a schedule of lectures detailed lecture notes and links to many other sources of information The web page contains some information e g solutions submitted assignments individual grades that is more sensitive and therefore which will be available to students in the class only after they have identified themselves properly To gain access to these parts of the web page a student must first complete an online questionnaire creating a unique identity and password 3 2 Electronic Assignment Submission All assignments for this course must be submitted electronically The submission procedure will be done through the course web page and allows students to submit from any computer connected to the Internet Each student in this class will be selecting a unique username password combination solely for use in identifying the student when using the course web page 3 3 Email with Instructor Face to face contact in class and in office hours is most desirable Yet email is a convenient form of communication as well I try to respond to email promptly including at least once each evening when possible If your question involves your progress on a current programming assignment my response will be more informative if you can point out the specific problem you have encountered and if I am able to see all of your source code Therefore I strongly suggest that you either attach all relevant files to the email or submit preliminary versions of such files through our online system 4 4 1 Graded Work Homework Assignments 15 We expect there to be a total of 8 10 written homework assignments during the course each of which involves some amount of work on a computer At the end of the semester we will throw away your lowest of the homework grades with the remaining assignments contributing equally to this portion of the grade CSCI 180 Spring 2009 Handout Syllabus 5 These will generally be due at the beginning of class on the assigned due date The problems will consist of short questions reinforcing the material in the lectures readings and programs Each homework will contain one or more practice problems that are not to be turned in and which can be discussed freely between classmates The problems that are to be submitted for a grade however must be done entirely individually A more complete