Table of Contents

Ground Rules

  1. Generic course policies are given at Prof. Spafford's Course Polices page.
  2. Weekly attendance is required.
  3. No specific outside homework is planned, but
    • you are encouraged to read through the weekly chapter before each class;
    • we may hold one or two separate “practice contests” toward the end of the semester; and
    • plan on attending the ACM 2010 International Collegiate Programming Contest this fall (site and date are not decided yet: either October 23rd or November 6th).
  4. When solving problems…
    • Course requirement: Discussions are fine, but write your own (team) code.
    • Contest requirement: Using books (especially the text) is OK, but no web searching (for class use, it is OK to search language reference materials).

One-Time Setup

  1. Buy the book: Skiena & Revilla, Programming Challenges.
  2. Join Facebook group: Competitive Programming.
  3. Join both robot judging websites:
  4. Set up directory structure and programming environment:
    • Use one directory for each problem (named, e.g., by the problem number).
    • Choose C, C++, or Java.
    • Programs read from stdin and write to stdout. For Java, use the Scanner class for input (arcane setup at Programming Challenges site is not needed).

Weekly Schedule

  1. Skim current chapter.
  2. Discuss chapter-of-the-week concepts.
  3. Join teams and participate in weekly competition (details coming).
  4. Discuss solutions.