Teachers
Teaching Assistants
Schedule Find the detailed plan for exercises classes, online walkthroughs, and lectures here. The plan will be updated weekly.
Materials
The weekplan below is preliminary It may be updated during the course.
| Week | Topics | Slides | Weekplans | Materials |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warmup: Preparation, Programming Prerequisites, and Puzzles. | Warmup | Survival Guide · Programming Prerequisites | ||
| Basic Concepts I: Introduction, Algorithms, Data Structures, Peaks. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Introduction | CLRS chap. 1 | |
| Basic Concepts II: Searching, Sorting. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Searching and Sorting | CLRS chap. 2 | |
| Basic Concepts III: Complexity, Asymptotic Notation, Empirical Analysis. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Analysis of Algorithms | CLRS chap. 3 | |
| Data Structures I: Stack, Queues, Linked Lists, Trees. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Introduction to Data Structures | CLRS intro to part III + chap. 10 + IPP chap. 4.3 | |
| Graph Algorithms I: Undirected Graphs, Representation, Searching, Modelling. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Introduction to Graphs | CLRS intro to part VI + chap. 20.1-20.4 + appendix B.4-B.5. + CSES chap. 11-12. | |
| Graph Algorithms II: Directed Graph, Topological Sorting, Implicit Graphs. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Directed Graphs | CLRS intro to part VI + chap. 20.1-20.4 + appendix B.4-B.5 + CSES chap. 11-12. | |
| Data Structures II: Priority Queues, Heaps. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Priority Queues and Heaps | CLRS chap. 6 + appendix B.5 | |
| Data Structures III: Union Find, Dynamic Connected Components. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Union Find | CLRS chap. 19 except 19.4 + Algorithms, 4ed. chap. 1.5 | |
| Graph Algorithms III: Minimum Spanning Trees, Prims' Algorithm, Kruskal's Algorithm. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Minimum Spanning Trees | CLRS chap. 21 + CSES chap. 15. | |
| Graph Algorithms IV: Dijkstra's Algorithm, Shortest Paths in Weighted Graphs, Shortest Paths in DAGs. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Shortests Paths | CLRS chap. 22 except 22.1 and 22.4 + CSES chap. 13. | |
| Data Structures IV: Binary Search Trees, Balanced Search Trees. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Search Trees | CLRS chap. 12. + Algorithms, 4ed. chap. 3.3 | |
| Data Structures V: Partial Sums, Segment Trees, Dynamic Range Minimum Queries. | 1x1 · 4x1 | Segment Trees | Notes - Chap. 1, 1.1, and 1.3. | |
| Course Wrap-Up: Questions, Exam, and Algorithms Courses and Projects. |
The course features a number of non-mandatory/voluntary hand-in exercises posted throughout the semester and evaluated by TAs. The guidelines for preparing these exercises are as follows.
The course has a single individual mandatory exercise towards the end of the course. The exercise is an individual exercise (see collaboration policy below) to be handed through the Learn platform. You can hand in the exercise as many times as you want before the deadline and the last hand in is the one that is evaluated. Remember to press the "submit" button to hand in. The exercise features multiple-choice questions and short answer format questions. In the short answer format, write only the solution (typically a single number). Do not add punctuation, whitespace, other information, etc.
Collaboration Policy The exercise is individual and you are not allowed to discuss the solutions to the exercise with others, except for discussing the text of the exercise with teachers. Under no circumstances is it allowed to exchange, hand-over or in any other way communicate solutions or parts of solutions to the exercises to other people. It is not allowed to seek out solutions from previous years, solutions from similar courses, or solutions found on the internet or elsewhere.
The exam is a written exam on the digital exam platform at DTU. The exam consists of 2 parts:
Example exams from earlier years are here.
What programming and mathematics requirements do I need for the course? In general, you need an introductory course in programming and mathematics. We use basic programming extensively to implement algorithms and discrete mathematics to analyse algorithms. See the materials on this page to clarify how this applies to your current competencies in programming and mathematics.
What is the language of the course? The official language of the course is English. Hence the spoken language in lectures and the exam is in English. There are Danish exercise classes and your are free to hand in the exercises and the exam in Danish.
What is the programming language used in the course? You can use the following standard imperative programming languages: Python, Java, C, and C++.
I need to quickly refresh my programming skills. What do you recommend? We suggest the book "Introduction to Programming in Python", Sedgewick and Wayne (or the Java version "Introduction to Programming in Java"). The book is compact, concise, and focused on the core technical aspects of programming used in algorithms. The books covers essentially all relevant material for the course in chapter 1.
Which supplementary books/materials do you recommend? We suggest the following:
When and where is the exam? Please see the DTU exam schedule.