CSE 30872 is an elective course in the Computer Science and Engineering program at the University of Notre Dame. This course encourages the development of practical programming and problem solving skills through extensive practice and guided learning. The bulk of the class revolves around solving brain-teaser and puzzle-type problems that often appear in programming contests, online challenges, and job interviews. Additionally, basic software engineering practices such as planning, debugging, testing, and source code management may be discussed.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Parse a variety of inputs and model problems.
Utilize appropriate data structures to represent and solve problems.
Implement common problem solving techniques and algorithms.
Employ modern software development methods and tools.
Debug and test code within an automated testing environment.
Unit | Date | Topics | Assignments |
---|---|---|---|
I/O | Wed 08/28 | Syllabus, I/O Slides Slides Panopto | Reading 00 |
Fri 08/30 | Complexity, Coding Style Slides Slides Panopto | ||
Sun 09/01 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 00 | |
Unit 01: Data Structures and Algorithms | |||
Sequence Containers | Mon 09/02 | Arrays, Lists Slides Panopto | Reading 01 |
Wed 09/04 | Stacks, Queues Slides Panopto | ||
Fri 09/06 | Testing Slides Panopto | ||
Sun 09/08 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 01 Challenge 02 | |
Searching, Sorting | Mon 09/09 | Searching Slides Panopto | Reading 02 |
Wed 09/11 | Sorting Slides Panopto | ||
Fri 09/13 | Cancelled | ||
Sun 09/15 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 03 Challenge 04 | |
Associative Containers | Mon 09/16 | Maps, Sets Slides Panopto | Reading 03 |
Wed 09/18 | Memoization, Profiling Slides Panopto | ||
Fri 09/20 | History Slides Panopto | ||
Sun 09/22 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 05 Challenge 06 | |
Complete Search | Mon 09/23 | Subsets Slides Panopto | Reading 04 |
Wed 09/25 | Permutations, Backtracking Panopto | ||
Fri 09/27 | Static Analysis Slides Panopto | ||
Sun 09/29 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 07 Challenge 08 | |
Bit Manipulation, Greedy Algorithms | Mon 09/30 | Bit Manipulation Slides Panopto | Reading 05 |
Wed 10/02 | Greedy Algorithms Slides Panopto | ||
Fri 10/04 | Documentation Slides Panopto | ||
Sun 10/06 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 09 Challenge 10 | |
Dynamic Programming | Mon 10/07 | Memoization (Again) Slides Panopto | Reading 06 |
Wed 10/09 | Table Building Panopto | ||
Fri 10/11 | Table Building | ||
Sun 10/13 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 11 Challenge 12 | |
Contest I | Mon 10/14 | Contest I | |
Wed 10/16 | Contest I | ||
Fri 10/18 | Contest I | ||
Fall Break | |||
Unit 02: Trees and Graphs | |||
Trees | Mon 10/28 | Representation Slides Panopto | Reading 07 |
Wed 10/30 | Traversal Panopto | ||
Fri 11/01 | Divide and Conquer | ||
Sun 11/03 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 13 Challenge 14 | |
Graphs I | Mon 11/04 | Representation Slides Panopto | Reading 08 |
Wed 11/06 | Traversal Panopto | ||
Fri 11/08 | Shortest Paths Panopto | ||
Sun 11/10 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 15 Challenge 16 | |
Graphs II | Mon 11/11 | Spanning Trees Slides Panopto | Reading 09 |
Wed 11/13 | Topological Sorting Panopto | ||
Fri 11/15 | Office Hours | ||
Sun 11/17 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 17 Challenge 18 | |
Graphs III | Mon 11/18 | Paths Slides Panopto | Reading 10 |
Wed 11/20 | Flows and Cuts Panopto | ||
Fri 11/22 | Office Hours | ||
Sun 11/24 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 19 Challenge 20 | |
Number Theory | Mon 11/25 | Primes and Modular Arithmetic Slides Panopto | Reading 11 |
Wed 11/27 | Thanksgiving | ||
Fri 11/29 | Thanksgiving | ||
Miscellaneous | Mon 12/02 | Negotiation, Contracts, Promotion, Mobility Slides | |
Wed 12/04 | Graduate School Slides | ||
Fri 12/06 | Slacking and Hacking | ||
Sun 12/08 | Programming Challenges | Challenge 21 Challenge 22 Challenge 23 | |
Contest II | Mon 12/09 | Contest II | |
Wed 12/11 | Contest II |
Component | Points |
---|---|
Readings Weekly reading assignments. | 11 × 3 |
Challenges Weekly programming challenges. | 23 × 7 |
Externals Practice Interview | 2 × 17 |
Contests In-class programming contests. | 2 × 36 |
Total | 300 |
Grade | Points | Grade | Points | Grade | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A | 285-300 | A- | 270-284 | ||
B+ | 260-269 | B | 250-259 | B- | 240-249 |
C+ | 230-239 | C | 220-229 | C- | 210-219 |
D | 195-209 | F | 0-194 |
All Readings and Challenges are to be submitted to your own private GitHub repository. Unless specified otherwise:
Readings are due before class on the Monday of each week.
Challenges are due at midnight on the Sunday of each week.
The Practice Interview submissions are due at noon on Wednesday, December 7.
Students are expected to attend and contribute regularly in class. This means answering questions in class, participating in discussions, and helping other students.
Foreseeable absences should be discussed with the instructor ahead of time.
Recalling one of the tenets of the Hacker Ethic:
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not criteria such as degrees, age, race, sex, or position.
Students are expected to be respectful of their fellow classmates and the instructional staff.
Any student who has a documented disability and is registered with Disability Services should speak with the professor as soon as possible regarding accommodations. Students who are not registered should contact the Office of Disabilities.
Any academic misconduct in this course is considered a serious offense, and the strongest possible academic penalties will be pursued for such behavior. Students may discuss high-level ideas with other students, but at the time of implementation (i.e. programming), each person must do his/her own work. Use of the Internet as a reference is allowed but directly copying code or other information is cheating. It is cheating to copy, to allow another person to copy, all or part of an exam or a assignment, or to fake program output. It is also a violation of the Undergraduate Academic Code of Honor to observe and then fail to report academic dishonesty. You are responsible for the security and integrity of your own work.
In the case of a serious illness or other excused absence, as defined by university policies, coursework submissions will be accepted late by the same number of days as the excused absence.
Otherwise, there is an automatic 25% late penalty for assignments turned in 12 hours pass the specified deadline.
This course will be recorded using Zoom and Panopto. This system allows us to automatically record and distribute lectures to you in a secure environment. You can watch these recordings on your computer, tablet, or smartphone. In the course in Sakai, look for the "Panopto" tool on the left hand side of the course.
Because we will be recording in the classroom, your questions and comments may be recorded. Recordings typically only capture the front of the classroom, but if you have any concerns about your voice or image being recorded please speak to me to discuss your concerns. Except for faculty and staff who require access, no content will be shared with individuals outside of your course without your permission.
These recordings are jointly copyrighted by the University of Notre Dame and your instructor. Posting them to other websites (including YouTube, Facebook, SnapChat, etc.) or elsewhere without express, written permission may result in disciplinary action and possible civil prosecution.
For the assignments in this class, you are allowed to consult printed and online resources and to discuss the class material with other students. You may also consult AI Tools such as CoPilot or ChatGPT for help explaining concepts, debugging problems, or as a reference. Viewing or consulting solutions, such as those from other students, previous semesters, or generated by AI Tools is never allowed.
Likewise, you may copy small and trivial snippets from books, online sources, and AI Tools as long as you cite them properly. However, you may not copy solutions or significant portions of code from other students or online sources, nor may you generate solutions via AI Tools.
Finally, when preparing for exams in this class, you may not access exams from previous semesters, nor may you look at or copy solutions from other current or former students.
Resources | Solutions | |
---|---|---|
Consulting | Allowed | Not Allowed |
Copying | Cite | Not Allowed |
See the CSE Guide to the Honor Code for definitions of the above terms and specific examples of what is allowed and not allowed when consulting resources.
If you are unclear about whether certain forms of consultation or common work are acceptable or what the standards for citation are, you responsible for consulting your instructor.
If an instructor sees behavior that is, in his judgement, academically dishonest, he is required to file either an Honor Code Violation Report or a formal report to the College of Engineering Honesty Committee.
In this class, as elsewhere on campus, students must comply with all University health and safety protocols, including:
We are part of a community of learning in which compassionate care for one another is part of our spiritual and social charter. Consequently, compliance with these protocols is an expectation for everyone enrolled in this course. If a student refuses to comply with the University’s health and safety protocols, the student must leave the classroom and will earn an unexcused absence for the class period and any associated assignments/assessments for the day. Persistent deviation from expected health and safety guidelines may be considered a violation of the University’s "Standards of Conduct,” as articulated in du Lac: A Guide for Student Life, and will be referred accordingly.
This is our main textbook for the semester. It contains background information regarding the algorithms and data structures we will be utilizing and implementing to solve different problems.
This contains a list of topics and links to resources to help students become competitive at programming contests.
This site has information about common questions and concepts often used in technical programming interviews, along with some answers to the questions.
This is a long list of common data structures and algorithm problems.
This is another list of common data structures and algorithms.
This site is an online judge for programming challenges found in the book Programming Challenges.
This site is contains a variety of programming challenges similar to what is found in ACM programming contests. It also includes non-programming contest type problems as well and is a platform for evaluating and testing your programming skills.
This is another site that contains a variety of programming challenges.
This is another site that contains a variety of programming challenges. It also periodically runs contests and learning resources.
This site is a large set of mathematical and programming problems designed to test your abilities and sharpen your skills. The problems make for good practice.
This is global programming competition where programmers test their skills by solving multiple rounds of algorithmic puzzles.
This is an annual series of programming challenges.