CS 1320 (Principles of Algorithm Design I):
Lecture Summaries

• August 27: Administrivia (syllabus). About the course. An example of algorithm design (converting decimal to binary).
• August 30: Algorithm design example from August 27 revisited. Number systems (decimal, binary, hexadecimal; addition).
• September 1: Number systems continued (negative numbers; subtraction). Simplified "what is a computer?" description. Representation of data.
• September 3: Simplified "what is a computer?", continued. A first program, and another program.
• September 6: Holiday.
• September 8: Quiz #1. Another simple program, to sum and add numbers.
• September 10: Quiz #1 returned. Program from last time revisited and extended.
• September 13: Program testing. A little more about Unix.
• September 15: A little more about Unix. Some debugging tips. Program to "make change".
• September 17. Program to "make change", revisited. Other data types (C++ double, float, char). Program to compute roots of quadratic equation, with input terminated by end-of-file.
• September 20 (substitute lecturer J. Oldham). Expressions and data types; booleans.
• September 22: More expressions, data types, and booleans. Integer guessing-game problem.
• September 24: Integer guessing-game problem, continued. Introduction to arrays.
• September 27: Quiz #2. More about arrays.
• September 29: Nested loops. Program to simulate rolling a die.
• October 1: No lecture; exam 1.
• October 4: Program to simulate rolling a die, continued.
• October 6: Exam 1 sample solution. Additional loop constructs ("do while" and "for"). Introduction to functions.
• October 8: Introduction to functions, revisited.
• October 11: Functions, continued.
• October 13: A little about type conversions. A little about strings. Top-down design, introduction.
• October 15: Holiday.
• October 18: Discussion of homework #5.
• October 20: Further discussion of homework #5. Review of functions. File input and output.
• October 22: File input and output, continued. File copying example. Call by value versus call by reference.
• October 25: Call by value versus call by reference, continued. File input and output, continued.
• October 27: Review of terminology. Examples of call by reference and file I/O.
• October 29: More file I/O, call by reference, and modular design.
• November 1: Homework #6 questions (10:30 section); command-line arguments (11:30 section).
• November 3: Questions about Homework #6 and Exam 2.
• November 5: No lecture; Exam 2.
• November 8: Introduction to pointers. Command-line arguments (10:30 section).
• November 10: Introduction to classes and objects.
• November 12: More about classes and objects -- using predefined classes.
• November 15: More about classes and objects -- defining classes.
• November 17: More about classes and objects -- defining classes, continued.
• November 19: Recursion.
• November 22: Recursion, continued.
• November 24: Hints and tips about tools (vi, gdb).
• November 29: Recursion, continued.
• December 1: No class.
• December 3: Review of homework #9.
• December 6: Binary search.
• December 8: Binary search, continued; a few words about estimating program execution time (to be discussed much more in CS1321 -- "big O notation").