Intro to CIT 594

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Intro to CIT 594

• http//www.cis.upenn.edu/matuszek/cit594-2006.htm
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Prerequisites

• The formal prerequisite is CIT 591
• CIT 591 was primarily a course in Java
• If you did not take CIT 591...
• You must be a reasonably good Java programmer,
  including programming applications, applets, and
  Swing
• You must be familiar with, or prepared to learn
  quickly
• JUnit testing
• The Eclipse IDE
• You are expected to have good Java programming
  style
• Other programming languages can not be used as a
  substitute for Java

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What the course is about

• There are four main, interrelated topics in
  CIT594
• Recursion
• Data structures
• Algorithms
• Analysis of algorithms
• In addition, we will continue to explore good
  programming practices
• Good programming style
• Good habits, such as creating test cases
• Use of tools, such as Eclipse and JUnit
• It will also be necessary to cover more Java

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Required textbook 1

• Data Structures Algorithms in Java, Second
  Edition, by Robert Lafore
• This book has the clearest and most
  understandable explanations of algorithms that I
  have ever seen (and Ive seen a lot of Data
  Structures textbooks!)
• It does not, however, cover some of the essential
  math we will need

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Recommended book 1

• If you dont have a book that describes the new
  features in Java 5 (especially generics), you
  should get one
• Heres my favorite

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Recommended book 2

• The Elements of Java Style, by Alan Vermeulen
  (ed.)
• This book describes the style that will be
  expected of you

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Java in this course

• This is a course in algorithms and data
  structures, not a second course in Java
• But...
• Java 5.0 will be the primary programming language
• We will study Java Collections in detail, as they
  are extremely relevant to the course
• You will be expected to use Eclipse 3.1M4 or
  newer (the current version is 3.1.1)
• Eclipse 3.0 does not support Java 5.0

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Java generics

• C programmers Java generics are similar to C
  templates
• We will study generics in some detail, but for
  now, heres all you need to know about generics
• Generics have little or no relevance to the data
  structure concepts we will be studying in this
  course
• Generics completely change the way we code data
  structures

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Java Collections

• Java Collections implement many of the most
  important data structures for you
• A traditional data structures course would have
  you implement these yourself
• I dont believe in re-inventing the wheel
• However, you need to know how these data
  structures are implemented, for the times when
  you need something more than Java gives you

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Algorithms

• There are literally thousands of published
  algorithms
• We will cover
• a few algorithms that are related to the data
  structures we are studying
• a few more algorithms that your instructor
  especially likes
• Its usually better to find an existing algorithm
  than to re-invent it yourself
• The Data Structures Algorithms in Java textbook
  is an excellent textbook for beginning data
  structures and algorithms, but it completely
  ignores Javas collections

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Analysis of algorithms

• Analysis of algorithms is a relatively small part
  of this course, but its an important part
• Analysis can tell you how fast an algorithm will
  run, and how much space it will require
• A good algorithm, even if badly coded, can run
  circles around a poor algorithm that is carefully
  tuned and highly optimized

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Assignments

• Except as otherwise noted, all assignments
• Are to be done solo (by yourself). As before,
• You may discuss the assignments with other
  students
• You may help (and get help with) debugging
• You may not give your source code to anyone
• Should be done in Eclipse
• Should include complete JUnit tests, and
• Should include complete javadoc documentation
• Late assignments will lose 5 points per day, and
  may not be accepted if more than a week late

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Grading

• We will have
• Approximately one assignment per week
• One midterm
• One final exam
• Grades will be curved
• We will use Blackboard to turn in assignments
• Grades will be weighted as follows
• 50 assignments
• 20 midterm
• 30 final exam
• If you feel a grading error has been made, you
  have one week after grades have been posted to
  bring it to our attention

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Office hours and (no) labs

• I will be more available than last semester
• I will post office hours these are the times
  that I will try hard to be in my office and
  available
• When my door is open, Im probably available
• Please try to keep visits short
• The TA will also have office hours
• We will not have extra help sessions or labs this
  semester
• We will be doing all or almost all individual
  (solo) projects, but there may be some exceptions

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The End