UW CSE326 Syllabus

CSE326

University of Washington

Summer 2004

Syllabus (6/21/2004)

Instructor:

Martin Dickey
Email: dickey@cs.washington.edu. Office: Allen Center 640. Office hours: See the link above

Teaching Assistant:

Deepak Verma (deepak@cs.washington.edu)
- Office hours: TBA

Class Times:

Lectures: MWF, ~~Savery 249~~ Allen Center 403, 9:40-10:40 am. Quiz section: Th, 1:10-2:10 ~~More 221~~ Allen Center 403. Check the UW Time Schedule for last-minute changes of time or room.
Midterm exams - During class period on Friday, week 3, and Thursday or Friday week 6.
Final exam - During class period during the last class meeting, Friday, August 20.

Mailing List:

To access the course email archive, click here .

Text Book:

Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis in Java by Mark Allen Weiss, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc., Reading MA, 1999. Errata. The Java source code for examples in the textbook is available.
We will cover at least the first seven chapters, and parts of chapters 8 and 9, time permitting.

Course Goals and Contents

The objective of this class is to study the fundamental data structures and algorithms used in computer science. Students will study advanced programming techniques and will learn to analyze the algorithms to determine their time and space requirements. By the end of the course, students should have the skills necessary for selecting between existing data structures and algorithms, and for designing their own. Students will also have gained some familiarity with using the Linux (UNIX) operating system.

Major topics will include: mathematical tools for describing algorithmic complexity; lists, stacks, and queues; general trees; binary trees; binary search trees; balanced binary trees; heaps and priority queues; hashing; graphs; B-trees (time permitting); union-find algorithms (time permitting). The implementation of these data structures and algorithms in Java will be studied and practiced.

In addition to the listed topics, a goal of the course is to improve your ability to solve interesting problems through programming, by recognizing when and how standard data structures can be used, and how new data structures can be created for novel situations.

For a more detailed list of topics and dates, please see the Lectures and Schedule page.

Assignments Overview

During the quarter you will have assignments of three types

pencil and paper: math-like problems; diagrams; pseudocode solutions; etc. Some of these will come from the textbook. These problems are similar in spirit to many that you might see on exams.
computer-based exercises: work to be carried out on the computer, where the task is fairly well specified and the emphasis is on gaining or reinforcing some particular skill
exploratory projects: where the problem is less constrained and the solution even less so; the emphasis is on experimentation and discovery.

There will generally be something due every Wednesday evening (electronically) and/or Thursday morning (on paper). For longer assignments there could be multiple parts dues. Each assignment will carry instructions about the requirements for its execution and turn-in.

Late assignments will not be accepted unless there is prior approval (which will not be easy to get!)

Many assignments can be done with a partner or small, which will sometimes be assigned; other times the choice will be up to you. You should try to arrange your schedule to be able to meet with fellow students on campus.

Tentative Grading Weights:

Pencil and paper assignments (15%)
Computer-based assignments (25%)
Quizzes (9%)
Service and participation (3%)
Midterm exams (14% each)
Final exam (20%)