Class 43: Searching

Held Tuesday, November 14, 2000

Summary

Today's course outline does not yet have a summary. Please remind me to create one.

Notes

• Tomorrow's reading: Searching
• This week we move on to some common algorithms that solve some basic problems that occur frequently.
• A few things that I forgot to mention about Exam 2:
  • In spite of all my complaints, many of you did very well. Congratulations. My complaints were intended to help you do better in the future.
  • If you can't get an answer, it helps if you write something about your approach, the error messages you're getting, and what you think they mean.
  • A number of you turned in some very weird answers to some problems. That in itself isn't all that concerning; sometimes we come up with different answers. However, I was concerned when I saw two weird answers that were similar (and very different from every other answer).
  • At least one of you seems to have turned in faked output. Note that Grinnell's academic honesty policy explicitly forbids using fake data on an experiment.
  • Yes, I really hate being a policeman.
• Jake Omvig will tell us something about Thursday's cool convo. (Sorry, no extra credit for this convo.)
• Next Monday at noon, Dr. Staicut will give a talk about Internet and Networks in Romania. Come learn about technology in other countries!

Overview

Searching

• Goal: Find a value in a collection.
• Typically, the collection is linear: An array or list.
• Sometimes, the collection is unordered. That is, there is no known arrangement to the list.