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Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

jeffe.cs.illinois.edu

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Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#181

Post by jefferickson »

mcguire wrote: post #153
emidln wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if no partial credit is offered, which is not how his exam[0] reads to me: As usual, answering any (sub)problem with “I don’t know” (and nothing else) is worth 25% partial credit. Yes, even for problem 1. Correct, complete, but suboptimal solutions are always worth more than 25%. A blank answer is not the same as “I don’t know” [0] http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/hwex/s18/fi...

I wonder how much credit the "this is the work of Satan" answers got?

None, because I never found out who submitted it.

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#182

Post by jefferickson »

smarks wrote: post #98
jefferickson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm the author. I'm honestly seriously torn about this. There is a serious tension between pedagogical needs of students in formal classrooms and the pedagogical needs of self-learners. I've chosen to aim for the former. Yes, I know it's a bummer. (From experience) providing solutions interferes with the learning process of my own students at Illinois. I have to change up homeworks and exam questions every semest…

Thanks for this explanation. This is one of the things that popped out at me when I looked at the book page. The statement about not providing answers seemed quite dogmatic, and my initial reaction was, why? Turns out it's not so dogmatic, and there's a thoughtful and nuanced explanation. Perhaps you could include some of this on the book page, or provide a link to the explanation elsewhere.

Good idea.

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#183

Post by akman »

briefcomment wrote: post #70

Are algorithms useful to learn for a non-programmer? Is there a benefit to thinking through what is presented in a book like this over solving general problems in a day-to-day context?

You may be interested in the book Algorithms to Live By ( Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths). I thought it was a fun-to-read book, though I don't think there was any code in the book at all.

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#184

Post by jefferickson »

Eridrus wrote: post #139
jefferickson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm the author. I'm honestly seriously torn about this. There is a serious tension between pedagogical needs of students in formal classrooms and the pedagogical needs of self-learners. I've chosen to aim for the former. Yes, I know it's a bummer. (From experience) providing solutions interferes with the learning process of my own students at Illinois. I have to change up homeworks and exam questions every semest…

Thank you very much for making your textbook available. Maybe having a separate set of problems for the online version, with solutions, would be appropriate? I have been wondering this for all freely available textbooks: have you ever thought about turning your book into an open source project? I see you already manage issues on GitHub, but how about managing the actual content there as well? Producing a printed book…

Yes, I have thought about making it into an open-source project, like Pat Morin did with his Open Data Structures textbook, or Boaz Barak with his Modern Complexity Theory textbook. (Both highly recommended, BTW.)

But I'm hesitant to release the LaTeX source files in their current (rather grungy) form. Too much of a control freak, I guess. Maybe for the next edition.

Also, the figures are all in a closed file format (OmniGraffle). In principle, I could convert everything to an open-source format like svg, but (0) converting everything would be hell, (1) LaTeX doesn't understand svg files directly, (2) in principle, I can connect latex to inkscape to convert svg to pdf, but the translation is always imprfect, (3) using Inkscape makes me want to tear my hair out, and (4) I'm a control freak.

And don't even talk to me about tikz.

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#185

Post by jefferickson »

bhl wrote: post #127
jefferickson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm the author. I'm honestly seriously torn about this. There is a serious tension between pedagogical needs of students in formal classrooms and the pedagogical needs of self-learners. I've chosen to aim for the former. Yes, I know it's a bummer. (From experience) providing solutions interferes with the learning process of my own students at Illinois. I have to change up homeworks and exam questions every semest…

> (From experience) providing solutions interferes with the learning process of my own students at Illinois. I have to change up homeworks and exam questions every semester, because otherwise students will look up and copy/memorize the answers instead of trying to figuring them out, which means they do worse on the exams where they HAVE to figure things out. While I understand the desire of a professor to help out th…

Of course the student is ultimately responsible for their own learning, but as the instructor, it's my responsibility to help them learn.

Dangling a juicy piece of bacon in front of their noses will not help them eat their vegetables.

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#186

Post by jefferickson »

specialist wrote: post #158
jefferickson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm the author. I'm honestly seriously torn about this. There is a serious tension between pedagogical needs of students in formal classrooms and the pedagogical needs of self-learners. I've chosen to aim for the former. Yes, I know it's a bummer. (From experience) providing solutions interferes with the learning process of my own students at Illinois. I have to change up homeworks and exam questions every semest…

Idea from common job interviewing process: Make the unit tests public. Or useable interactively online. I know it'd be a lot more work. If you had a repo for unit tests, I'd contribute.

WHAT unit tests? This is not a book about programming. The solutions are not code. None of the homework in my algorithms classes CAN be auto-graded.

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#187

Post by Twisol »

I am, in all likelihood, not in the target audience (having already spent much time with the material being presented), but this textbook has been a joy to read so far. I am only up to page 14, and I already need two hands (in base 1...) to count the number of times I've laughed aloud or cheered a particular point being raised.

Most algorithms books are dry, or they're obsessed by particular formal details, or (worse) they implicitly include optimizations in the algorithm without explaining what is needed for correctness and what is needed for efficiency. Having tutored on one of the books mentioned in the prologue, it can be a real struggle to gain a true intuition for algorithms when you can't yet tell the difference. But the sheer personality contained within this book is infectious, and it really is something of a page-turner. (Lest you think I haven't gotten to the stuff that "matters", I have read through the chapter on depth-first search -- again, an enjoyable read!)

What a great book. I'm definitely recommending this to my friends.

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#188

Post by jefferickson »

aklemm wrote: post #130
jefferickson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I'm the author. I'm honestly seriously torn about this. There is a serious tension between pedagogical needs of students in formal classrooms and the pedagogical needs of self-learners. I've chosen to aim for the former. Yes, I know it's a bummer. (From experience) providing solutions interferes with the learning process of my own students at Illinois. I have to change up homeworks and exam questions every semest…

You could consider providing answers and feedback in a premium priced forum or email subscription.

Ew. Ew ew ew. No.

Wait, did I say that aloud? Sorry, I meant "I'm already busy enough, thanks."

Re: Algorithms, by Jeff Erickson

#189

Post by jefferickson »

thrwthrw93223 wrote: post #34
nf05papsjfVbc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"pretend you don't have solutions" is not a realistic approach. The strength of people's conviction to this will probably fall on a bell curve and few can resist the temptation when the problems get really tough. Accounting for how humans are, I do not see how one can easily say "Having solutions is strictly better". I can easily think of cases where it is indeed better to have solutions but to say "strictly" require…

Don’t rob the self-learner that doesn’t have access to TAs, fellow students, and professors the ability to check their work, just because someone else doesn’t have the discipline to not abuse it. Textbook solutions are good for those that aren’t in school, aren’t in formal programs and have no other way of receiving feedback. The “you should know if you’re right” mentality doesn’t necessarily fit a person that’s been…

As I've said elsewhere, I'm looking out for my own students first.

One of my colleagues suggested setting up a "club" on PerusAll (https://app.perusall.com/welcome) or something similar that would allow people to discuss to book and/or work through problems collectively. (They have a club for CLRS, for example.) Right now all their "clubs" are restricted to books with Reputable Publishers (ptui), so they might need some persuasion.

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