Putting the "H" into 341H

• There are fewer students (approximately 10) and more emphasis will be placed on classroom discussion and interaction than is possible when there are 40 students in the class, which is typical for 341.
• The underlying theory will be covered more thoroughly. This does not mean that we will simply plow through additional proofs in class. It does mean that we will work hard to connect intuition and theory so the students gain deeper insights into why the data structures and algorithms work the way they do.
• Each programming project will start with the corresponding 341 project as a base, but modifications to that base will be posted on this web site. These modifications will sometimes be requirements for additional functionality, but in most cases the modifications will give the students additional freedom with respect to design and implementation. Programming assignments in the "real world" (i.e., when you're being paid to write code) typically come with substantial freedom along these dimensions, and this course will give you practice in how to handle such freedom.
• Dr. Oates, rather than a TA, will grade the project submissions. He will give detailed feedback on your design, implementation, and coding style. The hope is that this level of feedback will allow you to quickly improve the quality of the code you write.
• If you have ideas on others ways in which this section can be tailored to make it a good learning experience for all involved, please feel free to share them in class or during office hours.

Resources

Some resources that you'll find useful as the course progresses are described below:

• Contacting me: My office is ITE-336 and I'll have office hours on Tuesdays before class from 10:15 - 11:15 and on Thursdays after class from 1:00 - 2:00. My email address is oates@cs.umbc.edu. I typically respond quickly to email. I prefer that you do not call my office unless there is something urgent to discuss.
• Syllabus: The syllabus for the course can be found here.
• Regular 341 website: The regular 341 website can be found here. Things such as the student honor code, project descriptions and lecture notes (posted throughout the semester) can be found there. Modifications to project descriptions and lecture notes specific to 341H will be posted on this web page.

Announcements

• 05 Sep 2006 The following files were used in my GDB tutorial, which was based on the nice tutorial by Norman Matloff: Main.C, which is the buggy C++ code we debugged, and Wrapper.C, which we used to understand how to debug templated code.
• 05 Sep 2006 For the first project, you will do the same project as assigned to the regular 341 sections.
• 08 Oct 2006 Project 4 can be found here.