AoPS Expanding to Programming & CS

by rrusczyk, Mar 22, 2010, 7:32 PM

We are going to investigate building courses in programming and computer science. We'll likely start with courses for students with little or no programming experience, and expand from there. If any of you have thoughts on what you'd like to see, or what programming/CS courses have or haven't worked for you, please let us know!

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My school's at least slightly aggressive introductory CS course is an open course that might be useful to take a look at: http://cs50.tv/

Since it has a mildly sensational reputation on campus, I'm going to avoid putting context around it other than that a significant number (somewhere between a third and a half) of the people who take it take it as a truly introductory course.

by tcs09, Mar 22, 2010, 8:44 PM

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My introductory algorithms course (in college) was about half number theory, which I loved. It would be great if some of the more theoretical aspects of computer science was presented with ties to mathematical problems. In particular, I find that dynamic programming (which is a horrible name) is useful for solving certain types of problems on math competitions.

by haoye, Mar 22, 2010, 9:44 PM

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My one and only experience with CS was a graduate-level course on algorithms for computational phylogenetics (in other words, how you reconstruct how groups of organisms have evolved over time). The most useful aspect of the course to me was understanding the math behind the way the different methods work, how you could prove that they worked and what their limitations were, and how you could set up simulation studies to test how well they work in practice. But then again, in my line of work I don't program-- I find off-the-shelf software that will do what I need it to (or, even better, look at what other people are producing and figure out what I can use it for). So understanding what will work and why and under what circumstances was the most important thing that I could have gotten out of the course.

But I'm sure I'm not in your target audience, and you're not going to be teaching computational phylogenetics!

by Osud, Mar 22, 2010, 10:56 PM

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I found 3 books really valuable to CS in a theoretical perspective.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs(SICP), Introduction to algorithms(CLRS) and Introduction to the Theory of Computation

I would like the intro to CS course on based on SICP.
Then later having courses on algorithms and theory of computation.

It's also possible just to have a intro to python class...

by Mgccl, Mar 23, 2010, 1:02 AM

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I took a Data Structures and Algorithms course at CTY a couple summers ago that I rather liked. All algorithms were proven correct (not 100% rigorously, but the proofs were pretty tight) and runtime analyses were given (since none of the algorithms in an introductory course are particularly involved, this was usually pretty straightforward). Asymptotic notations were also defined well. I think one of the things I liked most about the class was that it was a lot like math at times.

Also, do some LISP-like language. So elegant :o

by Paiev, Mar 23, 2010, 3:05 AM

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I second the recommendation of SICP and would like to recommend even more strongly that you look at HtDP (http://www.htdp.org). Of all the courses I've taught, that one had by far the biggest impact on my own thinking, both about how to solve problems and how to teach problem solving.

by joshuazucker, Mar 23, 2010, 5:03 AM

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This is great news, Richard!

As I mentioned before, my sons had a very good experience with the Scheme based course offered by eIMACS (http://www.eimacs.com). They also offer courses in logic and I think the ties between logic and programming should be emphasized.

by djcordeiro, Mar 23, 2010, 2:56 PM

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That's a great idea :) I'd like to see an AoPS-type approach to computer science, and when such courses are offered, I'd be very interested in taking one. When do you they'll be available?

by isabella2296, Mar 23, 2010, 8:50 PM

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Hopefully in the fall.

by rrusczyk, Mar 23, 2010, 11:31 PM

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Will there be textbooks for these subjects?

by mathepic, Mar 24, 2010, 8:37 PM

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Not initially; possibly eventually.

by rrusczyk, Mar 24, 2010, 11:07 PM

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