- (10 points)
Read Lab
1.3 (p. 19 [DH]). This lab has you search the Internet
to find ten historical facts about computers, computing or the people involved in advancing the discipline.
For this assignment, you need only find five such facts.
In writing up your assignment, please adhere to the following standards:
Some additional web sites of interest, though not mentioned by the
book include:
You might also want to browse some of the links which were used
in the notes for lecture 01.
- (5 points)
Algorithms appear in many aspects of our daily lives, often
described in written instructions (e.g., preparing food, setting
the clock on the microwave, ordering a product from a catalog).
For this problem, your goal is to look around your daily life
for an interesting example of such an algorithm description.
An "interesting" example would be one which includes optional
steps, repeated steps, or other such features. (a less
interesting example is one which is a single sequence of steps,
such as 'step1...step2...step3...stop')
For your submission, please type these written instructions,
as they appear.
Furthermore, consider the definition of an algorithm, as given
in Figure 4.1 on page 169 of the Brookshear
text. Evaluate whether or not you feel that the instructions
constitute an "algorithm" by this definition, explaining your
thoughts.
- (5 points)
If I ask you to turn to page such-and-such of the text, what
process do you use? (I'm pretty sure that you do not start
turning pages one at a time)
Please try to give a formal description of your "algorithm" for
finding the page, in a way which satisfies the definition given
in Figure 4.1 of [Br] (which, by the way, is on page 169).
It's great to gather information from the Internet, but important to
cite your source of information so that others can judge its
credibility. You should have already included a URL with each fact.
For extra credit, rely on a different source for each of the five facts
and identify the person or organization who provided the content on
the given web site.