Algorithms and Data Structures - Spring 2024

announcements
Feb 20: Assignment n. 1: read and practice with the notes on Elementary Algorithmic Programming in Python, up to and including the Code Blocks section.
Feb 20: Welcome to Algorithms and Data Structures!
Instructor: Antonio Carzaniga
Assistants: Thomas Bertini,
Michal Burgunder, Koppány Encz, Fabio Di Lauro, Claudio Milanesi
Lecture schedule: Tuesday 11:00–12:30, Thursday 11:00–12:30. See the course weekly schedule or the second-semester Bachelor schedule for details and updates.
Instructors' Office Hours: by appointment
Assistants' Office Hours: by appointment

Objectives

Algorithms and data structures are fundamental to computer science. They are the essence of computer programs. Also, the performance of any software system depends on the efficiency of its algorithms and data structures. Designing and analyzing algorithms is therefore crucial for the development of software systems. More generally, the study of algorithms provides insight into the nature of problems and their possible solutions, independent of programming language, programming paradigm, computer hardware, or any other implementation aspect. The objective of this course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to design and reason about algorithms, and to understand some of the most fundamental algorithms and data structures, their strengths and weaknesses, and their suitability in common contexts.

Contents

The course will cover basic notions of complexity, including asymptotic analysis of worst-case and average complexity, big-O, little-o, omega, and theta notation, polynomial reductions, poly-time verification vs. solution, NP and P complexity classes; general algorithm strategies such as brute force, greedy, divide-and-conquer, and dynamic programming; common algorithms, including elementary numeric computations, searching and sorting, elementary graph algorithms, and string matching; basic data structures, including stacks, queues, linked lists, and rooted trees; more advanced data structures, including B-trees, heaps, hash tables, and structures representing disjoint sets and dictionaries.

Policies

See this page for assessment criteria and general course policies.

Learning Material and Other Useful Links

Lectures and Related Material

Material such as presentation slides and example programs are initially copied from last year's edition of the course, and then updated as we cover the material in class.
this page is maintained by Antonio Carzaniga and was updated on February 20, 2024