CMSC 160: Intro to algorithm design I

Spring 2015

Prof. Blaheta

Edsger Dijkstra famously said that "computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." What did he mean?

In this course, we will indeed spend plenty of time with computers, but my focus is ultimately to teach a different way of thinking about problems. The key skills I hope to help you develop are analytical problem solving and thinking in terms of abstractions. Should you choose to continue with more computer science courses, you will use these skills in every CS course you take, whether you are writing programs in C++, or in some other language, or not at all. And if I really do my job, the precision of thought you learn here will help to shape how you think about problems in your other courses, even if you never take another CS course again.

This class meets 10:00am on MWF, with a required lab section that meets at 2:00pm on Thursday.

The textbook is Programming: principles and practice using C++ 2e, by Bjarne Stroustrup (ISBN 978-0-321-99278-9).

Resources

Labs, homeworks, projects

Board photos