James Madison University

College of Integrated Science & Technology

Department of Computer Science

 

CS 480 – Programming Problems

Course Syllabus – Spring 2006

 

Professor:    Dr. Elizabeth S. Adams

Office:      ISAT/CS  213

Phone:          (540)-568-1667

E-Mail:        adamses@jmu.edu

Office Hours: 

Mondays:  by appointment OR when Blackboard announcement says I’m in my office

Tuesdays:  1:00pm to 3:00pm

Wednesdays:  1:30pm to 3:30pm

Thursdays:  1:00pm to 3:00pm

Fridays:  by appointment OR when Blackboard announcement says I’m in my office

 

Class Room:  HHS 2204

 

Class Meeting Time:  Wednesdays,  7pm to 9pm

 

Course Description:

This course is designed to provide students with the background and skills necessary to write programs to solve problems in a limited amount of time which will enable them to successfully compete in a programming contest.

 

Topics to be covered include :

  • Useful elementary data types
  • Elementary Data  Structures
  • Strings
  • Sorting
  • Arithmetic and Algebra
  • Combinatorics
  • Number Theory
  • Backtracking
  • Graph Traversals
  • Graph Algorithms

 

  • Dynamic Programming
  • Grids
  • Geometry
  • Computational Geometry

 

Strongly Recommended Text:

Programming Challenges:  The Programming Contest Training Manual,  Steven S. Skiena & Miguel A. Revilla, Springer, 2003.

 

Other References:

Any text on data structures and algorithms in Pascal, Java, C or C++.  

 

Course Objectives:

  • To gain practice in working as part of a team to solve a problem
  • To improve individual programming style
  • To gain practice in submitting programs to a Robot Judge
  • To improve familiarity with common data structures
  • To improve familiarity with useful algorithms
  • To practice writing programs in C, C++ and/or Java
  • To learn strategies and tactics for competing
  • To improve problem solving abilities

 

General Course Information:

Regular attendance is essential in this class and is required.  Active in class participation is also required.  Team problem solving is expected to be done in teams.  Students will be expected to be able to describe the problems they are solving to the rest of the class.  Teams will be expected to share the code they have developed with the class.  Team members will be expected to show their code in class and to discuss it with the class.    Here is the link to the course web page https://users.cs.jmu.edu/adamses/web  A particularly important file there is the ReadMeNow file.  It should be checked very regularly since that is how I will communicate with you.

 

Tentative Course Element Percentages

Attendance

Class Participation

Team work

Problem Solving

20%

20%

20%

40%

 

 

Grade Assignments

90-100%=A

80-89%=B

70-79%=C

60-70%=D

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