CS2501 - Data Structures and Algorithms I

Introduction | Repository contents | Contributing to this repository | Course description | License

Introduction

The repository contains content for CS2501 - Data Structures and Algorithms I at the University of Virginia. This course is part of the Computer Science department's curriculum pilot.

Repository Contents

Note that the links below will not work correctly if you are viewing this online at github.com -- you will need to clone (download) the repository first

Course Logistics: The syllabus, introductory slide deck, etc.
Homeworks (md): the homeworks are the main assignments in the course. For each course module, there are 0, 1, or 2 homeworks.
Quizzes: A published booklet of the weekly quizzes you will take for each module (note that this is under construction and will updated regularly)
Slides (md): Contains the slides used in the course. The slides use reveal.js, an HTML presentation framework.
Class Exercises: Code we wrote in lecture
Other stuff:
- Java Cheat Sheet: A cheat sheet of common Java things. Will be updated throughout the semester.
- Eclipse Debugger Tutorial: A tutorial on how to use the debugger in Eclipse.

Contributing to this Repository

Updates to the repository are restricted to approved individuals only, to prevent anybody from messing with the slides right before a lecture. However, others can still contribute to this repository -- to do so, take the following steps:

Create a github account, if you do not have one
Fork this repository: you can click on the "Fork" link in the upper right, or just click here
Clone your forked repository on to your local machine
Make any changes you want to your forked version, then commit and push your changes back to your forked repository
Create a pull request, following the instructions here

At that point, I will receive a notice that a change has been submitted, and I'll look at it and hopefully accept it into the main repository.

When you want to bring in the updates from the main dsa1 github repository into your forked repository, you will need to follow the instructions here.

Course Description

A second course in computing with an emphasis on foundational data structures and program analysis. The course provides a comprehensive look at the Java programming language including object oriented programming, concurrency, inheritance / polymorphism. Additionally, foundational data structures and related algorithms / analysis are studied. These include Lists, Stacks, Queues, Trees, Hash Tables, and Priority Queues.

The ABET course objectives are:

Students will understand how to write programs in Java, including all basic structures (e.g., if-statements, loops, functions), recursion, objects, methods, inheritance / polymorphism, and exception throwing / handling.
Students will understand and implement several key data structures, required for a foundational education in computer science. These data structures include Vectors, Linked Lists, Stacks, Queues, Binary Search Trees, AVL Trees, Hash Tables, and Priority Queues.
Students will understand and be able to implement various sorting methods, including bubble sort, insertion sort, mergesort, quicksort, and heapsort.
Students will be able to understand and analyze program analysis using practical approaches (e.g., mergesort vs. quicksort) and theoretical approaches (e.g., balanced vs. unbalanced search trees). This will include both space and time complexity analyses.
Students will gather an abstract, and basic understanding of concurrency and associated issues (shared resources, etc.). Students will be able to implement simple multi-threaded programs in Java.

License

The material in this repository is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA).