Handbook

The aim of this course is to get you to think like a computer scientist . This certainly sounds like a noble goal... but what does it really mean? How does a scientist , let alone a computer scientist, actually think?

What many types of scientists try to do is understand natural systems and processes: a geologist, for example, tries to understand the structure of the earth; a biologist tries to understand living organisms; a chemist tries to understand materials and reactions, and so on.

Computer scientists don't, as the name might suggest, simply try to understand the structure and behaviour of computers, but are more concerned with understanding software systems (and the interaction between the software and the hardware on which it runs). Also, unlike other scientists, computer scientists frequently build the objects that they study.

The goal of this course is to deepen your understanding of data structures and algorithms and how these can be employed effectively in the design of software systems. It is an important course in covering a range of core data structures and algorithms that will be used in context in later courses. You explore these ideas in lectures, tutorials, lab exercises, quizzes and assignments. Assessment involves lab exercises, quizzes, assignments and a final exam involving both practice and theory. At the end of the course, we want you to be a solid programmer, with knowledge of a range of useful data structures and programming techniques, and ready to continue with further specialised studies in computing.

Topics

This course provides an introduction to the structure, analysis and usage of a range of fundamental data types and the core algorithms that operate on them. Key topics are:

• Recursion
• Analysis of algorithms
• Abstract data types
• Binary search trees
• Balanced search trees
• Graphs
• Sorting algorithms
• Heaps
• Hashing
• Tries