ECS 122A - Algorithm Design and Analysis - Fall 1997

Course Information Sheet

September 26, 1997


You are responsible for everything on this handout. Read it.

Lectures

MWF 3:10-4:00 pm in 1150 Hart. The CRN for this class is 48728.

Discussion Sections

W 6:10 - 7:00 pm in 1150 Hart.
Discussion sections begin next week.

Instructors

This course will be taught in an unusual format; there are two instructors. We will take turns lecturing.

Teaching Assistant

Evening Midterm

There will be one midterm in this class. It will be Thursday, 30 October, 7-9 pm, in 1150 Hart. Closed book, closed notes. The exam is given in this format to remove time pressure; the exam should require well under 120 minutes.

Final

There is a misprint in the schedule of classes on the date. We are exam group J: 10:30-12:30 on Wednesday, Dec. 10 Closed book, closed notes.

Prerequisites

Minimal prerequisites are ECS 100 and ECS 110. Mathematics majors might do fine without ECS 100. You will probably end up failing if you try to take this class without having acquired a basic understanding of algorithms and data structures (ECS 40 and ECS 110 material) and some basic mathematical maturity.

Textbook

Introduction to Algorithms, by Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest. Often called "CLR." Reading the book strengthens the mind; carrying it strengthens the body. We've been using the same book for 122B and 222A, should you end up taking either of these classes in the future. It's a good reference for the practicing computer scientist. Clearly we will not cover all of its 1000+ pages.

Course Web page

We will maintain useful information on the course Web page: http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/122A/fall97/. Visit this page regularly to see what's new. If you miss a handout, get it from here.

Newsgroups

Grading

There will be weekly problem sets (30%), a midterm (25%), and a final (45%).

Homeworks

If homework is due on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, it is to be submitted in class, due at the beginning of lecture. If homework is due on a Tuesday or Thursday, it is to be turned in at the marked box in Engineering II, #2131 by 1:00 pm. Either way, no late homeworks will be accepted.

Much of what one learns in this course comes from trying to solve the homework problems, so work hard on them. Doing a conscientious job on the homeworks is the best preparation for the exams. We hope that you will ultimate solve the majority of the problems, but don't be surprised if some of them stump you; some of the problems may be quite challenging.

Your solutions should be terse, correct, and legible. Understandability of the solution is as necessary as correctness. Expect to lose points if you provide a "correct" solution with a not-so-good writeup. As with an English paper, you can't expect to turn in a first draft: it takes refinement to describe something well. Typeset solutions are always appreciated.

If you can't solve a problem, briefly indicate what you've tried and where the difficulty lies. Don't try to pull one over on us. We prefer absent solutions to wrong ones, and will adopt a grading policy to reflect this: 10 points for a perfect solution; a few points for good ideas; 0 points for an absent solution; negative points for work which is incomprehensible or reflects a significant misunderstanding. Know what you know and be clear about it.

We have found that some students are willing to spend long hours in front of a machine but are unwilling to spend those same hours thinking about a problem. Don't be that way.

If you think a problem was misgraded, please see the TA first.

Collaboration

Collaboration on the homework problems is discouraged. In our experience, acquiring the skills that the homeworks are trying to instill is a quite solitary endeavor. You need to sit under a big tree and think until the moment of insight hits you. It might never come, but, even if it doesn't, the experience may still be of more value than what often transpires in a discussion group.

That said, it is recognized that different people learn differently, and so we do not prohibit you from interacting on homeworks. But: if you get an idea from any source other than lectures or your textbook, you must acknowledge the source of the idea in your writeup. This doesn't affect your grade. Of course homework solutions must be written up entirely on your own.

Working together to try to understand lecture material or material in the text is fine.

A Friendly Warning

This will be a difficult class. We really want you to think. Don't try to solve the problems by doing some sort of "pattern matching." It won't work. You might find any of the following hints helpful. Do the reading before each lecture. (We'll always tell you what will be the next appropriate reading.) Don't get behind. Be selective in note-taking. (Often it works better to just sit there and really listen.) If you feel you need comprehensive notes, team up with someone else so that you only sometimes have to scribe notes. Work on your own. If you do get involved in a some sort of study group, don't let it degenerate into collective attempts to solve the homework problems.

Syllabus

There is a static list of topics on line, and a lecture-by-lecture topics list that will evolve as the course goes on.

Parting Thoughts

Some theorists are lousy programmers, but a no good programmer can be a lousy theorist. For to be a good programmer you must carry in your head a collection of algorithmic ideas that arise again and again; you must constantly invent new algorithms (or modify old ones); you need to be able to analyze algorithms (so you don't waste time coding ineffective solutions or optimizing irrelevant parts of a program); and you need to be able of read and understand literature which specifies non-trivial algorithms. If you think that this subject is useless, you are wrong!