CMSC 362: Theory of databases
Spring 2015
Prof. Blaheta
Data management is an old problem, once solvable only by large bureaucracies and lots of filing cabinets; the advent of digital computers in the mid-20th century made it possible to store more and more information on ever-smaller storage media with increasing levels of automation. More importantly, computers let us quickly perform complex searches on that data and to correlate information in ways never before possible.
This course is broadly divided into two halves. First, we will build on your practical foundation in databases from CMSC 262 so that you'll be able to design and build a small but substantial web-oriented database application. Then, in the second half, we'll explore some of the more theoretical aspects of database analysis and integrate this with the application you'll be building.
This class meets 11:00am on TR in Ruffner 354.
The textbook is Jeffrey D. Ullman and Jennifer Widom, A first course in database systems, 3e (ISBN 978-0-13-600637-4).
Course materials
- Syllabus
- Writing rubric
- Collaboration policy
- PHP reference
- PHP example files (from class)
- MySQL APIs in PHP
Labs, homeworks, projects
- Due 20 Jan: Homework 1 (revision due 27 Jan)
- Due 29 Jan: Paper 1
- Due 27 Jan: Homework 2 (revision due 3 Feb)
- Due 3 Feb: Homework 3 (revision due 10 Feb)
- Due 19 Feb (postponed due to snow day): Exam 1 will not be posted to the web.
- Due 26 Feb: Homework 4
- Due 26 March: Paper 2
- Due 17 March: Homework 5 (revision due 31 March)
- Due 31 March: Homework 6
- Due 23 April: Paper 3
Board photos
- 15 Jan: left, right (SQL review)
- 20 Jan: first, left, right (relational algebra)
- 22 Jan: left, right
- 27 Jan: first, left, right
- 29 Jan: left, right
- 3 Feb: first, second
- 5 Feb: left, right
- 10 Feb: left, right
- 12 Feb: left, right
- 17 Feb: Snow day
- 19 Feb: board
- 24 Feb: board
- 26 Feb: Snow day
- 10 Mar: left, middle, right
- 12 Mar: far-left, left, right, far-right (E-R project designs); board (decomposition)
- 17 Mar: left, right
- 19 Mar: left, right
- 24 Mar: left, right
- 26 Mar: left, middle, right
- 31 Mar: first, left, right
- 2 Apr: board
- 7 Apr: left right
- 9 Apr: board
- 14 Apr: Work day.
- 16 Apr: board
- 21 Apr: left, right
- 23 Apr: left, right