Computer Science 252
Introduction to Computational Theory
Winter 2009
Announcements:
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January 5, 2009,
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Welcome to CS 252 Winter 2009. This webpage is for sections 1 and 2.
Take some time to get acquainted with the webpage and the policies.
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January 5, 2009,
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Please send an email to mike at cs.byu.edu with times you absolutely cannot meet with a group. The email must be received by January 7 at 8am.
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Course Goals
At the end of this course, and for at least one year after, you should be able to:
Foundational Knowledge. You should ...
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Remember the three computing paradigms (DFA, PDA, Turing Machine) and their aliases (regular languages, context-free languages, and computable algorithms).
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Understand the difference between and the limitations of the paradigms.
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Understand the difference between "computable" and "practically computable".
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Remember the existence of proof techniques used in class.
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Remember the existence of approximation and probabilistic algorithms.
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Application and Reasoning: You should ...
- Design solutions to computability problems.
- Justify these solutions to others.
- Know when these justifications are good enough.
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Integration. You should be able to take a problem and ...
- Categorize problems into one of the existing paradigms.
- Recognize similarities to previously solved problems.
- Discourse on how computationally challenging the problem is.
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Human Dimension and Caring. You should ...
- Be confident in your ability to systematically analyze and solve hard problems.
- Value the importance of doing so.
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