Comp 600.226: Data Structures

Course Syllabus


Syllabus
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Homework 1
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Homework 2
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Professor

Jonathan Cohen
cohen(at-symbol)cs.jhu.edu
Office Hours
(NEB 218-B)
Tuesday 10:30 - 11:30 AM
Wednesday 12:00 - 1:00 PM
or by appointment

Teaching Assistant and Course Assistants

Teaching Assistant


Jonathan Bilodeau
bilodeau(at-symbol)jhu.edu
Office Hours
Undergrad Lab (NEB 225)
Monday: 1:00 - 2:00 PM
Wednesday: 3:15-5:15 PM
Thursday: 10:15-11:15 AM

Course Assistant


Ajay Vyasapeetam
ajay(at-symbol)cs.jhu.edu
Office Hours
Undergrad Lab (NEB 225)
Monday: 10:00 AM - 12:00
Friday: 2:30 - 4:30 PM

Overview

Data structures is an essential area of study for computer scientists and for anyone who will ever undertake any serious programming task. This course deals with the fundamentals of organizing and manipulating data efficiently using clean conceptual models. Students study many of the important conceptual data types, their realization through implementation, and analysis of their efficiency. Implementations in this course are carried out in the Java programming language, but the principles are more generally applicable to most modern programming environments.

Students should have at least one semester of programming experience (two semesters is even better) with either Java or C++. An overview of the Java essentials will be provided at the beginning of the course, but students with less Java experience are expected to familiarize themselves appropriately with Java during the first two weeks. This course is a prerequisite for all more advanced programming courses.

Lecture Topics

The lectures will provide an overview of Java, the tools for analyzing data structures and algorithms, and a number of the most common data structures. Topics include:

Reading

Required text:
Goodrich and Tamassia. Data Structures and Algorithms in Java, 3rd edition. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 2004. ISBN 0-471-46983-1.
Optional Java texts:
Arnold, Gosling, and Holmes. The Java Programming Language, 3rd edition. Addison-Wesley. 2000. ISBN 0201704331.

Flanagan. Java in a Nutshell. O'Reillly, 4th edition, 2002. ISBN 0596002831

Grading

The tentative grading break-down (subject to change) is as follows:

Lateness Policy

All assignments will be turned in electronically and are due by the date and time specified on the assignment. Assignments may be turned in up to 5 days late, with a penalty of 10% for each day late. No credit will be given after 5 days. Exceptions will be made only for notes from the dean's office or a physician's office.

Honor Code

Computer Science Academic Integrity Code

The strength of the university depends on academic and personal integrity. In your studies, you must be honest and truthful. Ethical violations include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of assignments, improper use of the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration, alteration of graded assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty, and unfair competition.

Academic honesty is required in all work you submit to be graded. Except where the instructor specifies group work, you must solve all homework and programming assignments without the help of others. For example, you must not look at any other solutions (including program code) to your homework problems or similar problems. However, you may discuss assignment specifications with others to be sure you understand what is required by the assignment.

If your instructor permits using fragments of source code from outside sources, such as your textbook or on-line resources, you must properly cite the source. Not citing it constitutes plagiarism. Similarly, your group projects must list everyone who participated.

Falsifying program output of results is prohibited.

Your instructor is free to override parts of this policy for particular assignments. To protect yourself: (1) Ask the instructor if you are not sure what is permissible. (2) Seek help from the instructor or TA, as you are always encouraged to do, rather than from other students. (3) Cite any questionable sources of help you may have received.

Students who cheat will suffer a serious course grade penalty in addition to being reported to university officials. You must abide by JHU's Ethics Code: report any violations you witness to the instructor. You may consult the associate dean of students and/or the chairman of the Ethics Board beforehand. For more information, see the guide on Academic Ethics for Undergraduates (http://www.advising.jhu.edu/ethics.html) and the Ethics Board web site (http://ethics.jhu.edu).

All of the above apply to this class. For exams, the line is pretty clear: Do not communicate with anyone else or use disallowed matierials during the exams. For programming assignments, you may find the line more fuzzy. It's okay to discuss ideas and concepts with other people, but not to share code. If the programming assignment is designated as a team project, you may only share code with the other members of your designated team. To ensure this, do not look at anyone else's code or communicate direct examples from your own code. If you want to help someone debug a programming problem, do not do it by showing them how your code looks. Avoid stepping through someone's code with them line-by-line, because the tendency will be to fix problems by making the code exactly like yours, or to incorporate identical fixes into your own code. Learn together by discussing ideas of how things should function in various cases.

All cases of confirmed plagiarism will be reported to the Student Ethics Board. In addition to receiving 0 credit for the assignment in question, you could receive an F for the course and even be expelled from the university. In addition to human review, we apply sophisticated software to find cases of plagiarism among students of the current semester as well as those of previous semesters. So don't do it.

On-line Course Information

This syllabus is available on the world-wide web at:
http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~cohen/CS226/syllabus.html
This is the home page for a series of course web pages. Included in these web pages are the course schedule, lecture notes, homework information, etc. Check the pages early and often - I will try to keep the modification dates of the various pages up to date to help you track changes (I will also inform you of important changes during class or via e-mail). All lectures slides which I present with the digital projector will be made available on the course web pages, so you don't have to copy them down (do take additional notes, however). The most current notes will generally not be available until after the lecture, but notes from last year's lecture on the same topic may be available in advance. Any material which I do not present electronically will not be made available electronically, but you will still be responsible for learning the content.

November 22, 2004