92055 CSC 3971N -- Advanced Programming I Fall 2011 HYBRID COURSE Meets selected Tuesdays, 4:55 pm -- 7:36 pm, Brookhaven A105 6 Sep 2011, 20 Sep 2011, 4 Oct 2011, 18 Oct 2011, 1 Nov 2011, 15 Nov 2011, 29 Nov 2011, 6 Dec 2011 Herbert J. Bernstein ( ) Assignments

This web page is http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Assignments.html
Copyright © 2011 Herbert J. Bernstein and other parties. All rights reserved.

All assignments are to be submitted as text-only email or posted on the web and submitted by email containing the URL of the assignment to: with absolutely no attachments. No assignments will be accepted late. No assignments will be accepted on paper. No assignments will be accepted on diskettes. An assignment is late if the email is sent after the start of the class at which it is due. The grade for the assignment will be sent back to the email address from which the assignment email was sent. In the case of group assignments in which multiple students are involved, one student should be the sender of the email and the other students should be listed both in the email "CC:" list and in the body of the message.

Students should check this page frequently for updates.

• Assignment #1, assigned Tuesday, 6 September 2011, due Tuesday, 20 September 2011.
   
  
  • If you have not already done so, create a Soureforge account for yourself and a Google Sites account for yourself to have reliable places to post work for this course on the web.
  • Get your text books and bring them to the next class.
  • Read the relevant links of the course syllabus web page.
  • As an exercise in programming, design and implement a program to take an arbitrary set of three-dimensional coordinates and find which one of those points is close to a given probe point. Do your first implementation in whatever programming language you know best. Test your implementation by generating 1 million random points against which to probe and 1000 randomly generated probe points. Worry about how to tell if your program is working correctly.
  • On or before 13 September 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_1.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • After you get your first version of the above program working, rewrite it in a different language.
  • Before class on 20 September 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_2.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class
  • Bring your laptop or netbook to class.
  • Get your notebook and start taking notes.
  • Form a study group.
  • Prepare a proposal for the general thread of topics you will work on and and the first two projects you will tackle.

• Assignment #2, assigned Tuesday, 20 September 2011, due Tuesday, 4 October 2011.
   
  
  • If you have not already done so, be sure to complete the first assignment including the first 2 quizes.
  • In class you will have settled on your thread for programming tasks for the semester and have chosen your first programming task for presentation in the class of 4 October. Prepare a first draft of your web page on or before 27 September 2011 and send that URL in an email to your instructor. Considering the instructor's comments, prepare an updated presentation as a web page and send that URL to the instructor in an email prior to the start of that class on 4 October 2011.
  • Review the Java, C and C++ texts and prepare a comparison of the similarities and differences among the languages as a web page you will be prepared to show and discuss during the next class. Email the URL of that web page to the instructor prior to the next class.
  • Read the relevant links of the course syllabus web page.
  • You will need to use HTML a great deal, both the prototype screen images for program and as an essential I/O tool for real applications. The next reading and quizzes you will do will help to give you a solid grounding in HTML. Pay careful attention.
  • Read the Schafer text through Chapter 9.
  • On or before 27 September 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_3.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Read the Schafer text through Chapter 18.
  • Before class on 4 October 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_4.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Continuing the exercise in programming to design and implement a program to take an arbitrary set of three-dimensional coordinates and find which one of those points is close to a given probe point, redo the program you did last time in a third different language from the ones you used last time. Test your implementation by generating 1 million random points against which to probe and 1000 randomly generated probe points. Worry about how to tell if your program is working correctly. Instrument all three programs to allow you to do a meaningful comparison of the performance of implementations in the three different languages.
  • Take whichever one of the three versions of the program showed the best performance, reimplement using the NearTree package from sourceforge and compare performace of the NearTree version with your three versions. Prepare an analysis as a web page and send the URL to the instructor prior to the next class. If you are unable to match NearTree to your best performing version, match it to one of the others. You may have trouble finishing this task by 4 October. In that case, make as much progress as you can and report that progress on the web page, with special attention on the issues that hold you up.

• Assignment #3, assigned Tuesday, 4 October 2011, due Tuesday, 18 October 2011.
   
  
  • If you have not already done so, be sure to complete the first two assignments including the first 4 quizes.
  • In class you will have attempted your first programming task presentation. Apply whatever comments and suggestions were made there to make an updated web page no later than Tuesday 11 October, send the URL in an email to the instructor for final review. At the same time prepare a second, new web page on the next topic in your thread and send a the URL of a first draft of that second web page to the instructor no later than Thursday, 13 October.
  • Redo review the Java, C and C++ texts and prepare an updated comparison of the similarities and differences among the languages as a web page you will be prepared to show and discuss during the next class. Email the URL of that web page to the instructor prior to the next class.
  • Read the relevant links of the course syllabus web page.
  • Read the Schafer text through Chapter 27.
  • On or before 11 October 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_5.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Read the Schafer text through the end.
  • Before class on 18 October 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_6.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Continuing the exercise in programming to design and implement a program to take an arbitrary set of three-dimensional coordinates and find which one of those points is close to a given probe point, do a brute-force implementation in Perl and compare it to a C++ implementation using NearTree. Carefully Analyse the differences in performance. Test your implementation by generating 1 million random points against which to probe and 1000 randomly generated probe points. Worry about how to tell if your program is working correctly.
  • Go to the Boston Preliminary Programming Contest (BOSPRE) Practice Facility http://www.seas.harvard.edu/hc3/bospre/facility/ and do beebumblia, betterbias, binary, birthday and buffalo. For this class you may use any language you wish, but to use the autojudge you will need to use java, C or C++.

• Assignment #4, assigned Tuesday, 18 October 2011, due Tuesday, 1 November 2011.
   
  
  • If you have not already done so, be sure to complete the first three assignments including the first 6 quizes.
  • In class you will have hopefully have attempted your first and a draft of second programming task presentation. Post a final version of your first presentation and an improved version of your second presentation on google sites and email the URLs to the instructor. Apply whatever comments and suggestions were made there to make an updated second web page no later than Tuesday 25 October, send the URL in an email to the instructor. At the same time prepare a third, new web page on the next topic in your thread and send a the URL of a first draft of that second web page to the instructor no later than Tuesday, 1 November, before class.
  • On or before 25 October 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_7.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Before class on 1 November 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_8.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Continuing the exercise in programming to design and implement a program to take an arbitrary set of three-dimensional coordinates and find which one of those points is close to a given probe point, take both the brute-force implementation in Perl and the C++ implementation using NearTree and try each on a cluster of 1,000,000 points with 1 of (0,0,0) and 10 points within 1 of (1000000000,0,0) using 1000 random probe points within a sphere of radius 1000 around (500000000,0,0). Redo the test using 1000 random probe points within a sphere of radius 1000 around (0,0,0). Redo the test using 1000 randome probe points witin a radius of 1000 around (1000000000,0,0). Carefully Analyse the differences in performance. Worry about how to tell if your program is working correctly.
  • Go to the Boston Preliminary Programming Contest (BOSPRE) Practice Facility http://www.seas.harvard.edu/hc3/bospre/facility/ and do changeview, chromatic, coloring, convexhull, convoy and redo your answers on beebumblia, betterbias, binary, birthday and buffalo in light of the discussion in class. For this course you may use any language you wish, but to use the autojudge you will need to use java, C or C++.

• Assignment #5, assigned Tuesday, 1 November 2011, due Tuesday, 15 November 2011.
   
  
  • If you have not already done so, be sure to complete the first four assignments including the first 8 quizes.
  • If you have not already done so, Post final versions of all your prior programming task presentations on Google Sites, and prepare one last programming task presentation for 15 November 2011. On 29 November each of you will make a commulative review presentation of all the material you have prepared, and each of you will be responsible for the material from these presentations on the final.
  • Go to the Boston Preliminary Programming Contest (BOSPRE) Practice Facility http://www.seas.harvard.edu/hc3/bospre/facility/ and do drunkard equity features fibonacci gcomputer gsat huffman hypercube For this course you may use any language you wish, but to use the autojudge you will need to use java, C or C++.
  • Then on or before 8 November 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_9.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Go to the Boston Preliminary Programming Contest (BOSPRE) Practice Facility http://www.seas.harvard.edu/hc3/bospre/facility/ and do isa monotonic motion opnum palin passwords paxos prooflabel For this course you may use any language you wish, but to use the autojudge you will need to use java, C or C++.
  • Then before class on 15 November 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_10.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Continuing the exercise in programming to design and implement a program to take an arbitrary set of three-dimensional coordinates and find which one of those points is close to a given probe point, take both the brute-force implementation in Perl and the C++ implementation using NearTree and try each on a cluster of 1,000,000 points arranged in a uniform grid with spacing 100.

• Assignment #6, assigned Tuesday, 15 November 2011, due Tuesday, 29 November 2011.
   
  
  • If you have not already done so, be sure to complete the first five assignments including the first 10 quizes. There is too much material backlogged for too many of you to allow for grading is it all comes in at the same time. Therefore you have until 9 pm on Thursday, 1 December 2011 to submit whatever you intend to have graded for the semester that is related to your programing task presentations, the quizzes or any other materials other than the final, and until Wednesday, 14 December 2011 to submit any materials related to the final (see below) you wish to have considered for grading for the semester.
  • If you have not already done so, post final versions of all your programming task presentations for the semester on Google Sites, with a cummulative overview. On 29 November each of you will make a commulative review presentation of all the material you have prepared, and each of you will be responsible for the material from these presentations on the final.
  • Go to the Boston Preliminary Programming Contest (BOSPRE) Practice Facility http://www.seas.harvard.edu/hc3/bospre/facility/ and do pseudopi puredie rle soldiers stringhash supercounter tableformatter For this course you may use any language you wish, but to use the autojudge you will need to use java, C or C++.
  • Then on or before 22 November 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_11.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • Go to the Boston Preliminary Programming Contest (BOSPRE) Practice Facility http://www.seas.harvard.edu/hc3/bospre/facility/ and do tng tour transducer treap tsearch unify virus warriors For this course you may use any language you wish, but to use the autojudge you will need to use java, C or C++.
  • Then before class on 29 November 2011, take the quiz at http://www.bernstein-plus-sons.com/.dowling/CSC3971F11/CSC3971_Quiz_12.html. Be prepared to discuss your answers in class.
  • To finish the exercise in programming to design and implement a program to take an arbitrary set of three-dimensional coordinates and find which one of those points is close to a given probe point prepare your one best final version of the program and provide in the comments of the code a clear rationale for the design choices you have made. Post the result on your google sites web site with an appropriate open source license no later than 4:55 pm on 29 November 2011. You will be graded not only on how well the program works, but on how well you justify your design choices in the comments.
  • Bring the version of the notes you will use for the final to class on Tuesday, 29 November 2011. This will avoid a delay in your starting the final on 6 December if I have to check your notes for the first time then.
• Final: You will have an in-class closed book, open notes final on Tuesday, 6 December 2011 in room A105 on the Brookhave campus. You must attend in person. The only notes you will be permitted to use are the notes you have taken in hardbound notebooks in your own hand. The final will be half questions about programming and half programming to do. You will have until 9 pm on Thursday, 8 December to improve your answers to the questions about programming and until 9 pm on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 to improve your answers to the programming question, but you only have the option to improve answers to questions you have actually started answering with some real content during the period of the final.