[CSatVTftw]

Today is the first day of the second summer semester here at va tech. So I walk into my data structures class thinking it's going to be boring and make me want to shoot myself, only to find out that it's a whole class on Android app development! My day is made. And maybe I should start reading the course descriptions before I go to class...

On that note, how is everyone's summer classes going (if you're taking any)?

[macosxnerd101]

You should definitely check out the Android tutorials on DIC. gabehabe's tutorials helped me get up and running with Android when I started with it at work.

[xclite]

CSatVTftw, on 09 July 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

Today is the first day of the second summer semester here at va tech. So I walk into my data structures class thinking it's going to be boring and make me want to shoot myself, only to find out that it's a whole class on Android app development! /> My day is made. And maybe I should start reading the course descriptions before I go to class...

On that note, how is everyone's summer classes going (if you're taking any)?

Hm. Interesting. Much better than the annoying Swing crap we used to do.
They still using WebCat?

[cfoley]

My data structures class was all queues, stacks, trees and heaps.

[xclite]

Data Structures at VT actually consists of two courses. The first mostly covers various types of trees, lists, and sort of doubles as a general programming course.

The second gets you into really analyzing structures, dealing with complexity, and the cooler structures like heaps, auto-balancing trees, more advanced lists like skiplists, etc.

I learned a lot more in the second.

[macosxnerd101]

Honestly, I didn't find the second one all that helpful. We really only implemented structures from the first half of the semester (BST, QuadTree, HashTable). We just ran through the Power Points on AVL Trees, Skip Lists, Splay Trees, and ye olde standard basic graph theory. There was no real homework or implementation practice with the latter topics. Really, I wish that the second course was offered online.

[Lemur]

Stacks, Queues, Linked Lists, Polish Notation, and some basic recursion. It was heaps of something alright... No wonder I had to spend so much time teaching myself actual data structures after it took 5-6 weeks to explain a stack and a queue to people...

[xclite]

macosxnerd101, on 10 July 2013 - 01:13 PM, said:

Honestly, I didn't find the second one all that helpful. We really only implemented structures from the first half of the semester (BST, QuadTree, HashTable). We just ran through the Power Points on AVL Trees, Skip Lists, Splay Trees, and ye olde standard basic graph theory. There was no real homework or implementation practice with the latter topics. Really, I wish that the second course was offered online.

Ew.

You did a BST in Data Structures 2? That's gone downhill. Who do you have for that? I think I had 4 or 5 major projects.

[macosxnerd101]

I had Barnette. It was really a McQuain class though minus McQuain. The first project was just a file parser. He ended up punting the Dijkstra's algorithm project for time's sake on project 4.

[cfoley]

So why are people doing Swing and Android in a data structures class?

[macosxnerd101]

They put a Software Engineering slant on the class, emphasizing workflow, team programming, and relevant technologies. I think the DS1 class has a maze game project for Android. Projects are along those lines.

[CSatVTftw]

xclite, on 09 July 2013 - 03:33 PM, said:

Hm. Interesting. Much better than the annoying Swing crap we used to do.
They still using WebCat?

Still using web-cat unfortunately.

I have Buffardi for it. He's a PhD student and super chill. No tests or mini-projects. Just one big program due by the end of the semester. A write your own Android app type deal. And no pair programming for labs either (huge relief).

[xclite]

macosxnerd101, on 10 July 2013 - 07:31 PM, said:

I had Barnette. It was really a McQuain class though minus McQuain. The first project was just a file parser. He ended up punting the Dijkstra's algorithm project for time's sake on project 4.

I didn't know Barnette did DS2. I had him for 1705 and actually didn't go to class. Should have tested out but yay GPA boosters.

Honestly looking back on my education at Tech, I felt I could have gotten a lot more out of it if I didn't spend so much time waiting for my classmates to catch up, and that's not a statement on my abilities.

The school is great, but I learned no CS for the first 2.5 years.

[CSatVTftw]

I haven't heard much about Barnette yet. I did apply to be a UTA for his 1114 class tho so we'll see.

[macosxnerd101]

@xclite: He generally doesn't. McQuain got pulled from it to teach Comp Org II since Cameron was doing research. Then one of the research professors for DS2 got out of it with a research grant, so they had to put Barnette in.

I agree with your observations. I'm just doing a CS minor now with a math degree. All I have left are Theory of Computation and Algorithm Analysis. I took proofs for math majors last semester since Math 2534 didn't carry over. I learned more CS in an hour in my proofs professor's office hours looking at the proof of correctness for Kruskal's algorithm than I did in a semester of DS2. Though to be fair, it was more the way the class was structured than anything else.

@CSatVTftw: Barnette is a good guy. As a teacher, his style is a little dry and boring. He's probably a good one to TA for, as he's pretty fair and realistic.