Ground Rules

Generic course policies are given at Prof. Spafford's Course Polices page.
Weekly attendance is required.
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).
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

Buy the book: Skiena & Revilla, Programming Challenges.
Join Facebook group: Competitive Programming.
Join both robot judging websites:
- Programming Challenges.
- UVA Online Judge.
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).