CS 334: Database Systems

Data is everywhere! It stands to reason that there must be smart ways of storing and retrieving it efficiently. We'll spend time looking at how database sytems are built, how to use them, and fundamental principles behind management of data. The most amazing thing about this class is that it uses ideas involving computer hardware, data structures, algorithms, database theory, new languages, and more. If it makes sense to talk about a course as being "interdisciplinary within computer science," this is the one.

Instructor: Dave Musicant
Email: dmusicant
Office: CMC 326 (x4369)
Office hours: check my web site
Grader: Anton Nagy (nagy)

• Database System Concepts (6th ed), Silberschatz, Korth, and Sudarshan, McGraw-Hill, 2010.
• NoSQL Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Emerging World of Polyglot Persistence, Sadalage and Fowler, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2012.

Your grade will be computed as follows:

Assignments: 49%
Exam 1: 17%
Exam 2: 17%
Exam 3: 17%

For each assignment that you work on in a team with other students, you'll receive a grade based on the quality of that joint submission. This grade will be used to form part of your overall homework average. Your overall homework score will form part of your course average, which will be used to determine a final grade.

That said, you also must do work of passing quality on your individual assignments and exams in order to pass the class.

• The assignments will be a mix of programming in SQL and Java (and maybe some Python), and non-programming analysis assignments.
• Late policy: Each assignment will have a specific time for which it will be due, and your electronic submissions are timestamped. You have seven "late-days" that you can use at anytime during the term, with no explanation or request needed. If you are off-campus, if you are sick, etc., these are all exactly the sorts of situations for which these late-days apply. You automatically use up a late-day for every 24 hour period that passes when you turn in an assignment late. For example, if you turn in two assignments late, each 17 hours after the due time, that counts as two late-days. Likewise, if you submit a single assignment 30 hours after the due time, that also counts as two late-days. Assignments that are turned in late after your late-days are used up will not receive any credit.
• The above late policy is an update on 4/2 from the original late policy, which was a lot more cumbersome and not nearly as friendly as this one.

• Each programming assignment will either be a "team" problem assignment or an "individual" assignment.
• When working on team problems, you and your partner should engage in the pair programming model, that is both of you should be sitting at a single machine, side by side. One of you is "driving," i.e. actually using the keyboard and mouse. The other is actively engaged following along, stopping bugs, and providing ideas. You should make sure that over the course of an assignment that you spend roughly the same amount of time each "driving." I will also ask you to turn in a form rating the work that your partner does.
• If you are determined to work alone on the team assignments, that's fine. I will expect, however, that you do work of the same amount and quality as those students with partners. You can change whether or not you work alone each "cycle" that I assign new partners.
• I will also be assigning analysis work. On these and on the "individual" programming problems you may collaborate with others in the class for ideas, but all students should turn in individual assignments for these. You should be writing up or programming your own solutions, and not sharing printouts with each other. You may discuss ideas with other students, but no paper or electronic record of your conversations should exist when the conversation is done.

There are two different kinds of working together: collaborating and plagiarism.