Scott Emrich
Office: 608 Min Kao Hall
Phone: (865) 974-3891; E-mail: semrich at utk.edu
Office hours: TBD; and by appointment

This course is the first in a two-course sequence on fundamental data structures and their associated algorithms. It emphasizes both how common data structures work and when they should be used.

Over the semester, we will study core data structures and concepts in C++, including arrays and Standard Template Library (STL) containers (vectors, deques, lists, sets, and maps), stacks and queues, hash tables, binary search trees, and binary heaps. We will also develop recursive problem-solving techniques, and build intuition for algorithmic performance and complexity.

The course balances the use of STL abstractions with selected hand-implemented data structures in order to strengthen understanding of underlying behavior, tradeoffs, and performance implications. Students are expected to design, implement, and debug correct, compilable C++ programs, with the goal of becoming more self-sufficient and confident programmers.

All programming will take place in a Unix environment and will be reinforced through regular, structured programming assignments.

That said, when I have previously taught this class students have found the text below an inexpensive but useful resource. Since we'll largely avoid newer C++ syntax (e.g., C++11) any version of this text will work the same as a resource. You should consider this text entirely supplementary, though.

C++ How to Program by Deitel and Deitel.

The syllabus can be found by clicking below:

[Syllabus link]