FIT1008 - Computer science

Leader(s): Associate Professor Maria Garcia de la Banda (Clayton); Mr Loke Kar Seng (Malaysia).

Offered

Clayton First semester 2009 (Day)
Clayton Second semester 2009 (Day)
Sunway First semester 2009 (Day)
Sunway Second semester 2009 (Day)

Synopsis

FIT1008 Computer science introduces students to core problem-solving, analytical skills, and methodologies useful for developing flexible, robust, and maintainable software. In doing this it covers a range of conceptual levels, from high level algorithms and data-structures, down to abstract machine models and simple assembly language programming. Topics include data structures; algorithms; object-oriented design and programming; and abstract machines.

Objectives

At the completion of this unit, students will be able to

1. Understand abstract data types and, in particular, data structures for stacks, queues, lists, and trees, as well as their associated algorithms for creating and manipulating them. Evaluate the appropriateness of different data structures for a given problem.
2. Understand basic searching and sorting algorithms and implement them. Understand the concept of algorithmic complexity. Analyse the complexity of these searching and sorting algorithms as well as other basic algorithms. Compare the complexity of different algorithms for solving a given problem.
3. Analyse different implementations of abstract data types and determine their implications regarding complexity, functionality, and memory usage.
4. Understand the uses of recursive algorithms and data structures, their advantages and disadvantages. Analyse the complexity of simple recursive algorithms, and their relationship with iteration. Understand basic recursive algorithms for lists and trees, and develop new ones.
5. Gain a deeper understanding of basic object-oriented (OO) concepts, and learn more advanced ones such as inheritance, polymorphism, information hiding and encapsulation.
6. Understand the design principles for building an object-oriented program, such as identify classes, and determine how and when to use inheritance.
7. Understand what a programming language paradigm is, and learn to distinguish among some of the major paradigms, including imperative, object oriented, functional and logic.
8. Understand the basic concepts in testing, including execution vs non-execution based testing, glass box and black box testing, correctness proofs, and test case selection.
9. Understand the requirements for "good programming practice".
10. Understand how numbers are represented on a computer.
11. Understand the different compilation targets, including abstract machine code, assembly language, object code, and machine code. Understand the relationship between simple code in a high level imperative language and and its low level translation into assembly code.
12. Learn the structure and design of a particular processor simulator. Analyse the execution in this simulator of simple iterative algorithms learned before, thus gaining a deeper understanding of the connection between software and hardware, between an algorithm and its execution.
13. Understand the trade-offs regarding simplicity, efficiency and memory usage when designing the architecture of a computer.
14. Understand how the simulator implements function calling, and use it to reinforce the connection between recursion and iteration.

1. Create their own data-structures. Design and implement Java programs using a variety of data structures and algorithms.
2. Implement an object-oriented program consisting of many interacting classes requiring not only basic but also advance object-oriented concepts.
3. Construct a test harness for testing an object-oriented program.
4. Debug and modify an existing program (written by somebody else).
5. Use the Java API classes as part of their programs.
6. Use the processor simulator for executing some of the simple iterative programs learned in this unit.
7. Determine the time and space requirements of simple algorithms and data structures.

Assessment

Examination (3 hours): 70%; Compulsory assessed laboratory classes: 20%; Mid-semester tests: 10%

Contact hours

7 x contact hrs/week

Prerequisites

FIT1002

Students beginning FIT1008 are assumed to be able to:

Identify the main components of an algorithm (variables, operators, expressions, etc), and write the algorithm associated to the specification of a simple problem.
Use software development tools such as compilers, debuggers, editors. In particular, design, implement, compile, debug and execute a Java program containing selection, repetition, simple classes and two dimensional arrays.

Prohibitions

CSE1303, CSC1030, FIT1007, FIT1015

Additional information on this unit is available from the faculty at:

http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/units/fit1008