The class meets twice a week. Most classes will consists of lecturing, but we will also have discussions. Please attend all lectures, since the material is not based on any particular text. Some of the material is available only in the lecture notes: if you miss lectures you may find it difficult to catch up.
There are no formal prerequisites for the course. However, we expect you to know how to program, understand fundamental data structures (hash tables, search trees, stacks, queues). It is recommended that you have taken some basic database class before.
Assignments: 50%
Reviews: 20%
Project: 30%
We will discuss several papers during the quarter. You will have to write a 0.5 - 1 page commentary on each paper, and submit it before the class meets. The commentary should reflect your understanding of the issues raised by the paper, and should also help you prepare for an in-class discussion. In most cases we have posted some guidelines for you to follow. We will grade your response as credit / partial credit / no credit.
One suggestion for the format for the commentary is to critique the paper. For example, list its contributions (and, briefly, why those results were not already obvious), its shortcomings (in your opinion), the questions it raises. Another acceptable format is to summarize the paper, describing its thesis, approach, and conclusions, and stating why it is significant. If you have questions about the paper, list them in your reviews, and also raise these questions in class, since we may not answer the questions individually.
Since this is a graduate class, we are more lenient about late days. For homework assignments, we will accept valid excuses (conferences, paper deadlines, etc.) and will work with you to figure out the earliest day that you can hand in your work; we do reserve the right to impose cutoff dates if someone abuses our leniency unreasonably. Also, note that the schedule for the entire course is very tight: once you fall behind, it will be very hard to catch-up.
None: we do not accept any late submissions.
You are encouraged to discuss the content of this course with anyone you like. Assignments and paper reviews are done individually. The project is to be done in a group of up to three students. If two teams pick the same project, we expect each team to produce original work different from that of other teams. Feel free to look-up any information on the web that you may find useful in completing the assignments, projects, or paper reviews.
postgres, Amazon Web Services, Java
Feel free to use LLMs for learning; for example, you may practice SQL queries by interacting with ChatGPT. Do not use the LLMs to produce your homework solution; we can detect egregious cases.
Some excerpts from the campus policies. Take them seriously: "You must use all UW [computing] resources in strict accordance with local, state, and federal laws. These laws cover such areas as illegal access to computer systems, networks, and files; copyright violations; and harassment issues... Software and information resources provided through the university for use by faculty, staff, and students may be used on computing equipment only as specified in the various software licenses. Unauthorized use of software, images, or files is regarded as a serious matter and any such use is without the consent of the University of Washington...If abuse of computer software, images, or files occurs, those responsible for such abuse will be held legally accountable."