COSC-160: Data Structures

Fall 2021

Contents

• Announcements
• Where, When, Who
• Description
• Learning Goals
• Policies
• Course Assistants
• Schedule
• Assignments and Grading
• Materials: Readings, Videos, and Links
• Other Interesting Links

Announcements

12/5/21: Posted the locations for the final exams. Both exams will be in our usual classroom. Section 01's exam will be on Monday, December 13, 9–11 AM in Regents 239. Section 02's exam will be on Thursday, December 16, 9–11 AM in ICC 108.

• Data Structures and Algorithms in C++, 2nd edition, by Goodrich, Tamassia, and Mount.
• Also available in Safari Books Online (aka O'Reilly for Higher Education). Note that for first-time access you need to authenticate through the Library's Web site to access this resource: Safari Books Online.

• Data Structures and Algorithms in C++, 1st edition, by Goodrich, Tamassia, and Mount.
• Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd edition, by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, and Stein. Available Online.

My course policies are designed to supplement the University's Undergraduate Honor System and the CS Department's Honor Policy. Unless stated otherwise when I distribute an assignment, the following is the default for all assignments for this course. I have developed my policies from past teaching experiences and from the CS Department's Honor Code at George Mason University.

I am obligated to refer all suspected cases of academic dishonesty by undergraduate and master's students to Georgetown's Honor Council. I am obligated to refer all suspected cases of academic dishonesty by doctoral students to the dean of the Graduate School. If you have any questions about these policies or how they apply, please discuss such concerns with me during class, during office hours, by e-mail, or using the class's discussion board.

In my experience, students at Georgetown do honest work. The very small percentage of students who have submitted someone else's work as their own did so because they did not manage their time wisely.

Students must always follow proper scholarly practice for all submitted work, whether graded or ungraded and whether a draft or final version of a proposal, paper, program, or problem set. As scholars, we must acknowledge our reliance on the work of others through citation. You can never submit someone else's work as your own without proper attribution. The University assumes that students learned how to properly cite material at their previous institutions. If this is not the case, please let me know.

Indeed, students may be quite adept at and knowledgeable about citing and quoting material from traditional sources, such as books and articles. Typically, we do not have cite facts, common math formulae, or expressions of our own ideas, observations, interpretations, and analyses, However, students new to computer science may not realize that theorems, proofs, algorithms, programs, and code fragments may require the same treatment as any other form of expression.

For convenience, you do not need to cite the course materials, which are the syllabus, sources linked from the syllabus, the course textbook, the class lectures and discussion, posts on the discussion board, and conversations with me and the course's teaching assistants. You must, however, cite the use of any resource that is not part of the course materials. Note that “the textbook” does not extend to the textbook's Web site, its contents, lecture slides, solution manuals, code repositories, or any other material related to the textbook. The syllabus links to any such material pertinent for the class. If you are unsure about what requires citation or what constitutes proper scholarly practice, please ask me during class, during office hours, by e-mail, or using the discussion board.

I design my courses and assignments so students have what they need to complete the assignments individually without consulting outside resources. I determine the size of and credit for assignments based on the assumption that the work for them is the result of individual effort using only the course resources and materials. Students who use outside resources to complete assignments may not be eligible for full credit. Students who do not acknowledge their use of outside resources to complete assignments may be in violation of my course policies and the university's policies on academic integrity.

The materials that I create and use for my courses (“Course Materials”) are my intellectual property. You may not disseminate or reproduce them in any form for public distribution (e.g., sale, exchange, etc.) without my written permission. Course Materials include all written or electronic documents and materials that I provide, including but not limited to syllabi, current and past assessments and their solutions (e.g., exams, homeworks, projects, problem sets, etc.), and presentations such as lectures, videos, slides, etc. Course Materials may only be used by students enrolled in the course for academic (i.e., course-related) purposes. Furthermore, your solutions to assessments are derivative works of my copyrighted material and are therefore subject to that protection because they necessarily incorporate my protected expression. Consequently, you may not further disseminate or reproduce in any form for distribution (e.g., uploading to websites, sale, exchange, etc.) your solutions to assessments.

Published course readings (book chapters, articles, reports, etc.) available in Canvas are copyrighted material. I make these works available to students through licensed databases or fair use. They are protected by copyright law, and may not be further disseminated or reproduced in any form for distribution (e.g., uploading to websites, sale, exchange, etc.) without permission of the copyright owner.

You can find more information about intellectual property and copyright here: https://www.library.georgetown.edu/copyright. You can find more information about computer acceptable use policy and intellectual property here: https://security.georgetown.edu/it-policies-procedures/computer-systems-aup.

Copyright issues aside, if you post your solutions to assessments on the Internet, it is possible that students in future classes will find your solutions and submit them as their own work without attribution. Naturally, students who do so violate my course policies, and the Honor Council will with high probability find them in violation and sanction them. The Honor Council may also find you in violation because you facilitated cheating and violated copyright law and the Web site's terms of service.

I understand that it is often important for securing a job or an internship for students to provide prospective employers with a portfolio of their work. I recommend that students devise a scheme for doing so that does not violate copyright law, does not violate the terms of service of the site on which you have posted material protected by copyright, and does not facilitate cheating.

The following list details acceptable and unacceptable practices:

• You can:
  • obtain assistance in understanding course materials (textbooks, lecture notes, assignments);
  • obtain assistance in learning to use the computing facilities;
  • obtain assistance in learning to use special features of a programming language's implementation;
  • obtain assistance in determining the syntactic correctness of a particular programming language statement or construct;
  • obtain an explanation of a particular syntactic error;
  • obtain explanations of compilation or run-time error messages.
• You can obtain assistance only from me and the teaching assistants:
  • in designing the data structures and algorithms used in your solution;
  • in modifying the design of an algorithm or data structure determined to be faulty;
  • in implementing your algorithm or data structure in a programming language;
  • in correcting a faulty implementation of your algorithm or data structure;
  • in determining the semantic correctness of your program;
  • in designing an experimental study and interpreting its results.
• You can not:
  • show or give a copy of your work in any amount or form to another student;
  • post course materials or your solutions for any assessment to any site on the Internet, including sites such as GitHub and CourseHero;
  • see or receive a copy of someone else's work in any amount or form;
  • attempt to gain access to files other than your own or those that I designate and authorize;
  • inspect or retain in your possession another student's work, whether it was given to you by another student, it was found after other student discarded his or her work, or it accidentally came into your possession;
  • collaborate in any way with someone else in the design, implementation, or logical revision of an algorithm;
  • use or present as your own any algorithm, data structure, or implementation that is not of your own or of my design, or that is not part of the course materials.
  • study or incorporate code that others have written, such as code found on the Internet;
  • attempt to reverse engineer routines used for automatic grading.

Policies dealing logistics:

• You have permission to occasionally take digital photos of the material on the board for your personal and course-related use, but you can not post these recordings on the Internet. It is important to understand that all of the course material is covered by copyright, either mine or someone else's.
• You should submit all assignments on time. For late projects, there will be a 1% deduction for each minute after the deadline. In the real world, it won't be your grade that decreases. It'll be your stock price.
• I grant extensions only to students who have documentation for a medical issue, a family emergency, or an accommodation from the Academic Resource Center. In the cases of a medical issue or a family emergency, it would be best to coordinate with your advising dean since these situations often affect your work in all of your classes.
• If you use your laptop for development, you should keep a backup of your projects on a university or department machine (e.g., cs-class) so that if something goes wrong with your submission I can verify that you completed the work for an assignment before the deadline.
• You must take the final exam with the section and during the period designated by the Registrar.
• It is my job to maintain a constructive learning environment for everyone. Please silence your cell phone and other electronic devices.
• It is fine if you must leave class early, arrive late, or leave the room to answer your phone, but you should do so in a manner that does not disturb your fellow students.
• In the case of inclement weather that results in the university's closure, we will meet virtually during normal class times using Zoom.
• The Undergraduate Bulletin stipulates that “[a]ll students are expected to attend all classes...” Furthermore, in the classroom, I value and promote questions and discussions. It is important for all students to hear and learn from these discussions even if they choose not to participate. As a consequence, you will be allowed up to three unexcused absences throughout the course of the semester. If you are absent four or more times, your course grade will be lowered by one unit for each absence after the third (e.g. A to A- for the fourth absence, A- to B+ for the fifth).

  Absences will be excused for participation in a university-sponsored varsity athletics (with confirmation from the appropriate contact) and for religious holidays (for a list of religious holidays that are excused absences, please visit: https://campusministry.georgetown.edu/religious_holy_days.) You are responsible for any material covered during your absence.

  Absences for minor illnesses do not count as excused, but rather count against your three allowed absences. If you will be missing more than two classes because of a serious illness or because you have been asked to quarantine, you should contact your advising dean, who will help you work with all of your professors to formulate a recovery plan. The same goes for other types of emergencies, such as family illnesses. We will deal with such absences in a compassionate way, but since they affect all of your courses, you will work with your advising dean to make a plan for getting back on track.

  Finally, if you must miss class for any reason, be sure to get the lecture notes from a classmate.

For flexibility, each student has two Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards—virtual cards, of course—and 36 grace hours. Students can use their goojf cards to obtain an additional submission to Autoloab or to avoid answering one question on the midterm or final exam. Students can use their grace hours to obtain extensions on projects. Grace hours can not be used for an extension on the final project (p5) because of university rules.

To use the cards and hours for a project, students must post a private message on Piazza before 4:30 PM ET on the day the assignment is due. There can be only one request of each type per assignment. For example, students can not use two cards for a project, and they can not make two requests to use their grace hours on an assignment. They can, however, use a card and their grace hours on a project. To use a card to avoid answering a question on an exam, students can simply mark the question accordingly (e.g., goojf).

For grace hours, students must specify the number of hours they will use. If they submit their project beyond the new deadline, it will be late and the usual deduction will apply. Once a request to use a goojf card or grace hours has been made, it can not be retracted. Unused submissions and hours can not be reclaimed. Cards and hours can not be transferred to other students. Note that cards and grace hours are intended for use in normal circumstances. Students who experience extraordinary setbacks, such as medical or family emergencies, may qualify for an extension without using their grace hours. Students in these situations should contact the instructor or their advising dean.

• Homework, Optional
• Homework 0 (Concept Inventory), assigned W 8/17, due T 9/1 @ 11:59 ET
• Homework 1, assigned W 8/25, due F 9/3 @ 11:59 ET
• Homework 2, assigned W 9/1, due F 9/17 @ 11:59 PM ET
• Homework 3, assigned W 9/15, due F 9/24 @ 11:59 PM ET
• Homework 4, assigned W 9/29, due F 10/8 @ 11:59 PM ET
• Homework 5, assigned W 10/20, due F 11/5 @ 11:59 PM ET
• Programming Projects, 45%
• Project 1, assigned W 8/25, due F 9/17 @ 5 PM ET, 9 points
• Project 2, assigned W 9/15, due F 10/1 @ 5 PM ET, 9 points
• Project 3, assigned W 9/29, due F 10/22 @ 5 PM ET, 9 points
• Project 4, assigned W 10/20, due F 11/12 @ 5 PM ET, 9 points
• Project 5, assigned W 11/10, due M 12/6 @ 11:59 PM ET, 9 points
• Midterm Exam, 18%
• Section 01: W 10/27
• Section 02: R 10/28
• Final Exam, 27%
• Section 01: M 12/13, 9:00 AM, Regents 239
• Section 02: R 12/16, 9:00 AM, ICC 108
• Attendance and Participation, 10%

String Grades::getLetterGrade()
{
  if (grade >= 94)
    return "A";
  else if (grade >= 90)
    return "A-";
  else if (grade >= 87)
    return "B+";
  else if (grade >= 84)
    return "B";
  else if (grade >= 80)
    return "B-";
  else if (grade >= 77)
    return "C+";
  else if (grade >= 74)
    return "C";
  else if (grade >= 70)
    return "C-";
  else if (grade >= 67)
    return "D+";
  else if (grade >= 64)
    return "D";
  else
    return "F";
} // Grades::getLetterGrade

I use automatic grading routines to assign an initial grade for the projects. It is important to emphasize that the grade you obtain from Autolab is an initial grade and may not be your final grade. There are many important aspects of a program that are difficult or impossible to assess using automatic grading routines. For example, automatic grading routines can not determine if you have written proper documentation. They can not easily assess if an implementation of an operation is optimally efficient. As a consequence, I start with the initial grade you obtain from Autolab and take further deductions if necessary.

For complete implementations, I use the following distribution as a guide:

• 40%: Compiles against the autograder
• 20%: Executes without failure using the autograder
• 40%: Autograder unit tests
• 10%: Internal documentation, if required
• Purpose of classes and methods explained in documentation comments
• Purpose, range, and meaning of identifiers explained, where needed
• Complex flow of control explained
• 10%: Style and formatting
• Nested indentation for loops and conditionals
• All class, method, and function headers emphasized
• Comments set off from code
• Vertical alignment of comments, where appropriate
• White space between blocks of code (and comments)
• Mnemonic identifier names
• 80%: Algorithm and Implementation
• Correct implementation of the operations
• Proper object-oriented design and implementation
• Appropriate error checking and diagnostic messages
• Appropriate data and object types
• Correct, clean, organized output format

Notice that an implementation consisting entirely method stubs would obtain an initial grade of 60%. Such an implementation is incomplete, and would be subject to further deductions based on the effort required to implement the required operations.

In addition to the above, the following deductions may be taken if applicable:

• 20%: Does not compile on cs-class
• 1–10%: Incomplete or improper submission
• 1–10%: Debugging or unnecessary output
• 1–5%: My effort for fixing any minor issue
• 1–5%: Inefficiently implemented routine
• 1% per minute: Late deduction

• Dynarski, S. M. (10 August 2017). For better learning in college lectures, lay down the laptop and pick up a pen. Research Report, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. (Read if interested.)
• Perez-Hernandez, D. (28 March 2014). Taking notes by hand benefits recall, researchers find. The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Read if interested.)
• Mueller, P. A. and Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6):1159–1168. (Read if interested.)
• Autolab, for submitting projects
• Piazza, for online discussions.
• Canvas, for document distribution, submitting homeworks and exams, and for submitting projects if Autolab breaks.

• cppreference.com
• cplusplus.com
• C programming.com–Your Resource for C and C++ Programming
• Google C++ Style Guide
• Book: Managing projects with GNU make, 3rd Edition, by Robert Mecklenburg. We will give you Makefiles that you can modify, but if you want to learn more, Chapters 1 and 2 are probably sufficient for this class.
• Screencast: Program Organization
• Screencast: Basic Makefiles
• Screencast: Date Class Design and Implementation
• Screencast: Makefile Magic
• Screencast: Processing Command-line Arguments
• Screencast: DOC Comments, Doxygen, and Posting Documentation on the Web
• YouTube Playlist: Classes
• YouTube Playlist: C++ Vectors
• YouTube Playlist: Pointers
• YouTube Playlist: Self-referential Classes
• YouTube Playlist: Bit Operations, Set ADT, and the BitSet Class
• YouTube Playlist: Red-Black Trees: Insertion and Removal
• MIT's course The Missing Semester of Your CS Education
• vi Reference Card
• emacs Reference Card
• gdb Reference Card
• How to Write Doc Comments for the Javadoc Tool
• doxygen: A documentation system for C++, C, Java, and other languages
• Unix as IDE
• Xcode, Apple's free integrated development environment (IDE). Make sure you install the command-line tools.
• Eclipse, a free integrated development environment (IDE) for Linux, OS X, and Windows
• NetBeans, a free IDE for Linux, OS X, and Windows (Oh! And Solaris)
• Code::Blocks, a free IDE for Linux, OS X, and Windows
• Visual Studio Express, a free IDE for Windows
• vim, an improved vi editor for Unix, OS X, and Windows. It's usually already installed on OS X and Unix systems
• Interactive Vim Tutorial
• Useful Unix Commands
• HOWTO: Log in and transfer files to cs-class from OS X and Linux
• HOWTO: Log in and transfer files to cs-class from Windows
• HOWTO: Create and compile files on cs-class
• WinSSH: a secure telnet and ftp client for Windows (educational license)
• PuTTY: a free secure telnet and ftp client for Windows
• FileZilla: a free secure ftp client for Linux, Windows, and MacOS

• The 2017 Top Programming Languages
• xkcd: Old Days
• Computer Language Benchmarks Game
• An Interview with Bjarne Stroustrup, which includes his thoughts on educating computer scientists
• Now Blooming: Digital Models
• Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years, by Peter Norvig
• Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software
Engineers of Tomorrow?, by Dewar and Schonberg
• The 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups, by Paul Graham
• Hackers and Painters, by Paul Graham
• In the Beginning was the Command Line, by Neal Stephenson
• Bjarne: the man, the language
• The Deitel Empire
• GNU gcc, which includes g++, our C++ compiler
• Peet's
• Fast Lane
• Red Bull

Copyright © 2020 Mark Maloof. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.