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Reading Assignments and Reading Homework

Fall 2000

The following reading assignments are made. Homework, in the form of a synopsis of the reading assignment, will be collected at the beginning of the designated class meeting. The intention of these assignments is (1) to persuade everyone to read the text books, (2) to allow the instructor to emphasize major concepts and critical points in the text material, and (3) to allow class discussions to introduce material not covered in the text.

Homework must be typed (unless specified otherwise) and will be collected at the beginning of class on the date the homework is due. No homework will be accepted after the beginning of class and no homework will be accepted by email.

Homework is to be done individually. The purpose of the "read and report" homework is to make it possible to cover the course material effectively. Thus, it is important that each person read and write for themselves. If the instructor believes that homework has been jointly written, on the first occurrence the grade will be shared jointly among the writers. A second occurrence will be considered academic dishonesty and appropriate action will be taken.


#1 (due Friday, August 25)

Read Chapter 1 of Java Elements and write a synopsis of the material in this chapter. Your outline should be about two typed, single-spaced pages in length and should contain references to all the major points covered in the chapter as well as examples and citations as appropriate. You will also use this outline as a study guide when studying for the Hour Quiz and the Exam, so make it useful to yourself.

Include answers to at least one of the following exercises at the end of your synopsis.
Exercise 1.1, page 13
Exercise 1.2, page 15
Exercise 1.4, page 19
Exercise 1.5, page 23
Exercise 1.6, page 26
Exercise 1.7, page 27
Exercise 1.10, page 30
Exercise 1.11, page 32

#2 (due Monday, August 28)

Note: Do not use the Console Window. Instead, use the ReadStream and PrintStream Classes, pages 334-335 of Java Structures. Do use the Drawing Window. Read Chapter 2 of Java Elements and write a synopsis of Chapter 2.

Include answers to at least one of the following exercises at the end of your outline.
Exercise 2.1, page 44
Exercise 2.2, page 45
Exercise 2.3, page 54

#3 (due Wednesday, August 30)

Read Chapter 3 of Java Elements and write a synopsis of Chapter 3. Include the answer to at least one of the exercises in this chapter.


#4 (due Friday, September 1)

Read Chapter 4 of Java Elements and write a synopsis of Chapter 4. Include the answer to at least one of the exercises in this chapter.


#5 (due Wednesday, September 6)

Read Chapter 5 of Java Elements and write a synopsis for Chapter 5. Include the answer to at least one of the exercises in this chapter.


#6 (due Friday, September 8)

Read Chapter 6 of Java Elements and write a synopsis for Chapter 6. Include the answer to at least one of the exercises in this chapter.


#7 (due Wednesday, September 13)

Read Chapter 7 of Java Elements and write a synopsis for Chapter 7. In addition to the two page synopsis, include another page giving the answer to exercise 7.8 on page 187..


#8 (due Monday, September 18)

Read Chapter 8 of Java Elements and write a synopsis for Chapter 8. Include the answer to exercise 8.2 on page 234 (What is an "abstract data type," and why is it considered an improvement over systems that don't support data abstraction?).


Omit Chapter 9 of Java Elements


#9 (due Friday, September 22)

Read Chapters 10 and 11 of Java Elements and write a synopsis for these chapters. Submit answers to the following questions:

What is the purpose of threads in Java?
What is a Java Virtual Machine and why is it important?
Why is the Turing machine an important concept?
What is a P-RAM? What is it used for?

The answers to these questions are to be included in the required "approximately two pages." It is expected that the answers to these questions are a substantial portion of the synopsis, or even the entire synopsis.

#10 (due Wednesday, September 27)

Read Chapters 0, 1, and 2 of Java Structures and write an outline for these chapters. Answer the following questions from page 29: Problems 2.2, 2.3, and 2.10. (0.5 pts. each for 2.2 and 2.3, 1 pt. for 2.10, and 8 pts. for remainder of synopsis)

#11 (due Monday, October 2)

Read Chapter 3 (Vectors) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 3. Work Problem 3.1 and Problem 3.4 on page 47 (1 point each, 8 points for synopsis). If your answer to the last part of Problem 3.4 is "yes" you should clearly describe how you would set the size of the Vector.

#12 (due Friday, October 6)

Read Chapter 4 (Design Fundamentals) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 4. Work Problem 4.2 on page 73 (2 points; synopsis is 8 points). You should clearly describe the situations which cause the best-case time and the worst-case time.

#13 (due Wednesday, October 11)

Read chapter 5 (Sorting) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 5. Work Problem 5.6 on page 96. (problem 2 points, synopsis 8 points)

#14 (due Monday, October 16)

Read Chapter 6 (Lists) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 6. Work Problem 6.1 on page 124 (1/2 point). Also, work Problem 6.2 on page 124 (1.5 points). Include a statement as to whether or not peek() is symmetric with respect to tailpeek() and why the code can or can not be written symmetrically with the given instance variables.

#15 (due Monday, October 23)

Read Chapter 7 (Linear Structures, including Stacks and Queues) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 7. Work Problems 7.1 (0.5 pt.), 7.2 (0.5 pt.), and 7.3 (1 pt.) on page 152. For Problems 7.1 and 7.2 draw the stack (queue), showing the elements on the stack (queue). For Problem 7.3 indicate precisely the operations required.

#16 (due Monday, October 30)

Read Chapter 8 (Iterators) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 8. Work Problem 8.2 on page 165 (10 pts.). You will want to write an implementation of the iterator including instance variables, constructor, and the 4 methods listed on page 157. You do not need to compile and run your code, but your code is more likely to be correct if you do so. The synopsis is 10 pts. and Problem 8.2 is an additional 10 pts., making this reading assignment total 20 points (double assignment).

#17 (due Wednesday, November 8) .

Read Chapter 9 (Comparable Objects) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 9.

#18 (due Monday, November 13)

Read Chapter 10 (Trees) of Java Structures and write a synopsis of Chapter 10.

#19 (due Monday, November 20)

Read pages 249-257 of Chapter 12 (Search Trees) and write a synopsis of these pages.


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