Texts

This semester we'll use several ``textbooks'':

• Goodrich & Tamassia's Data Structures and Algorithms in Java. This book starts with a quick two-chapter introduction to the Java language, and then takes a tour through a number of common data structures, discussing the strong and weak points of each data structure, its efficiency for various operations, and how to implement it.
• Watts Humphrey's Introduction to the Personal Software Process, which some of you used last semester. I will not give specific reading assignments in this book, but expect you to finish it on your own by the end of the semester. I'll expect each homework assignment you turn in to be accompanied by various kinds of work logs, described in the book.
• David Flanagan's Java in a Nutshell. This is not really a textbook, but a reference book: it doesn't explain things in as much detail as a ``teach-yourself-Java'' book would, but it gives you the information you need in a clear, concise package. Since professional computer scientists have to learn a new language every year or two, you should start getting used to learning a language from this sort of book.
• On-line documentation for Java's predefined classes.

The reading assignments are an important part of the course. If you're going to pay $50 or more for a textbook, you might as well get your money's worth by reading it. We'll go through most of the Goodrich & Tamassia book, most of the Humphrey book, and scattered parts of the Flanagan book this semester, so make time in your weekly schedule for about fifty pages a week.

You are responsible for everything in the reading assignments, whether or not I discuss it in a lecture. You are also responsible for checking my class Web page at least once a week or so for assignments, corrections to assignments, solutions to assignments, etc..