Question about CS240

[dcvg]

To anyone who has taken CS240, how hard is this class? Is there a lot of math involved?

[Tony]

If you are familiar with trees, then the course is fairly easy. This term 6 of 8 assignments are on-paper (+2 Java implementations -- linked lists and B-trees). There's some Math (proofs of run-time complexity), but it seems pretty trivial.

There are certainly more involved 2nd year CS courses (241, 246 for programming, 245 for "Math") than 240.

[DemonWasp]

CS240 has gotten easier since I took it then, because I recall taking it while trying to learn C (lame language to have to learn). Pretty well every assignment was an exercise in pain, particularly because we had to access byte-array RAM manually...and had to write the byte-array implementation ourselves (and debug that too...). This was also only about 18 months ago.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

The term DemonWasp is referring to was nonstandard (but, in my opinion, probably more effective than any version in recent memory).

Tony's experience is more typical.

There could be more math involved (and more interesting programming), but there generally isn't enough of either.

[dcvg]

Good thing then, I'm supposed to be 5 math/cs courses next term, I'm considering dropping one and picking up a bird course. People say that MATH 239 is really scary so maybe I'll drop that one instead and take it in a less hectic term since CS240 doesn't seem to be the killer course I was expecting it to be.

[Tony]

What are the 5 courses that you plan on taking?

(Also, 239 could indeed be scary).

[dcvg]

^^ As of now
CS240
CS245
CS246
STAT 230
MATH 239

But I'm getting rid of 239

[Inchy]

Math239 wasnt that bad.. (I took it during spring term this year) The combinatorics part was pretty interesting, and overall the course was quite managable as long as you go to class and pay attention.