UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
CISC 320
Introduction to Algorithms
MWF 12:20-1:10PM
308 Gore
Home Page Spring 2002
The URL for this page is
http://udel.edu/~caviness/cisc320-02S-homepage.html
(Note that all the letters in the URL are lower case except the S in
02S)
This is the home page for the University of Delaware course CISC 320 -
Introduction to Algorithms taught by Prof. B. F. Caviness in
the Spring of 2002.
In the Beginning ...
"More than sixty years ago, mathematical logicians, by defining
precisely the concept of an algorithm, gave content to the ancient human
idea of effective calculation. Their definitions led to the creation of
the digital computer, an interesting example of thought bending matter to
its ends.
...
Having coaxed the concept of algorithm into self-consciousness, the
logicians have made possible the creation of algorithms of matchless power,
elegance, concision, and reliability."
--- from D. Berlinski, The Advent of the Algorithm, 2000.
"A good algorithm can--and every computer practitioner has seen
this--shorten the time it takes to solve a problem from days to
seconds."
--- from D. Shasha & C. Lazere, Out of Their Minds:
The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists
Syllabus
-
The computing project for the course is 2104. This is for use of
the composer machines, especially strauss.
-
The
syllabus gives an overview of the course including the
textbooks to be used and a tentative course schedule.
Textbook
-
Required: Michael T. Goodrich & Roberto Tamassia,
Algorithm Design: Foundations, Analysis, and Internet
Examples, John Wiley, ISBN: 0-471-80141-7.
John Wiley also has a
web page for this text.
Browsers and Plug-ins
-
For this course you need to have access to a computer with either
a Netscape 4.x (or later) or Internet Explorer 4.x (or later)
browser, but probably not IE 6 since it does not support
plug-ins. The browser should be set so that both
JavaScript and
Java are enabled. The browser needs to be supplemented with
certain plug-ins to facilitate reading of online material that contains
mathematical equations.
-
For this purpose, you should have
available the IBM techexplorer plug-in
( download).
The plug-in has been installed on the central composer machines by
the IT staff.
techexplorer will work with both Netscape and IE. If you have both
browsers installed on your machine, follow the instructions for
installing
the plug-in for Netscape and it will automatically be installed for
IE as well. techexplorer comes in two editions for Windows and
the Macintosh - an introductory
edition which is free and will be mostly sufficient for this course
although you will not be able to print material that is displayed
by the plug-in (under Unix the free intro edition is the only one
available).
For Windows and the Mac there is a professional
edition available for $29 that does have some print capability.
Here is a
test document
on which to try the techexplorer plug-in.
-
You will also want to have available a reader for pdf files. We
will use these as an alternative way of displaying and printing
mathematical material. A pdf reader is already available on the
composers. It is invoked with the Unix command
"acroread".
A free reader and printer for pdf files
can be found at the
Adobe web site. On my Windows machine, the reader is
automatically called by the browser and displays the pdf in the browser
window which is nice. On the composers (strauss, copland), clicking
on a pdf file causes it to be downloaded into your file system
(a download window pops up that allows you to indicate the
directory in which you wish to have the pdf file copied). You
then must use the Unix command "acroread filename.pdf" to
view or print the file. Since most students have limited disk
space on the composers, you may have to delete these files after
viewing/printing them. Also, the pdf files are much larger than
the tex files that techexplorer uses so if you are downloading the
pdf files over a dial-up modem, it may take a while.
Lecture notes
For each class lecture notes will be provided that include the
assignment for that class, important announcements (if there are any),
solutions to previously assigned exercises, and an outline of the
lecture. The outline normally contains a list of all topics to be
covered(sometimes with additional details) and examples to be
discussed. These documents will be made available as they are
completed. Normally this will be shortly before the lecture.
Examples
This is a directory of the examples discussed in lecture.
Solutions to homework exercises
Solutions to many of the daily homework exercises will appear in this
directory.
Online course grades will be available at a later date. To view
your grades, after getting the CIS320> prompt do
CIS320> mygrades
This should display your grades and an approximation to your current
average. If you think that a grade is incorrectly recorded, please
check with the TA. An announcement will be made when
this feature is available.
| Instructor: |
B. F. Caviness |
| Contact Info: |
Office: 406 Smith Hall |
Phone: 831-8234 |
email: caviness@cis.udel.edu |
| Office Hours: |
Weds 2-3:30PM & by appt |
| Teaching Assistant: |
Ozcan Koc |
| Contact Info: |
Office: 51 E. Main St., Rm 005 |
Phone: 831-6635 |
email: koc@cis.udel.edu |
| Office Hours: |
Fris 10-12 Noon |
This page has been accessed 
times since 20 Jan 2002.
Corrections, suggestions and comments tocaviness@cis.udel.edu
Copyright 2002 B. F. Caviness