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Stanford University

Design of Computer Programs

Stanford University via Udacity

Overview

Understanding how to approach programming problems and devise a solution is an essential skill for any Python developer. In this course, you’ll learn new concepts, patterns, and methods that will expand your coding abilities from programming expert, Peter Norvig.

Syllabus

  • Winning Poker Hands
    • Steps of the design process and developing for clarity and generality.,Arguments for program correctness and experimentation and simulation.,Design tradeoffs; Simplicity and Clarity. Decomposition and composability.
  • Back of the Envelope
    • Back of envelope calculations: When to use brute force and when to be clever.,The Zebra puzzle: Generator expressions, Permutations and combinations.,Cryptarithmetic; Recursive and wishful thinking; Longest palindrome substring algorithm.
  • Regular Expressions, other languages and interpreters
    • Defining the language of regular expressions and Interpreting the language.,Defining the set of strings matched by a regular expression,Other languages.
  • Dealing with complexity through search
    • Search: finding your way with a flashlight or boat.,Analyzing the efficiency of an algorithm.,Recurrence relations and Matching data types with algorithms.
  • Dealing with uncertainty through probability
    • Probability: the game of Pig.,Maximizing expected utility to optimize strategy.
  • Word Games
    • Managing complexity.,Large sets of words.,Appropriate data structures.
  • Conclusion
    • Interviews and practice exam.

Taught by

Peter Norvig

Reviews

4.1 rating, based on 14 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Design of Computer Programs

  • Very entertaining. Both challenging and fun.
    Can be useful to get the gist of programming and algorithms, learn some advanced Python tricks, and find some nice general solutions to problems and puzzles of varying difficulty.
  • Anonymous
    All I can say is wow. If you want to watch a master, irrespective of your experience as Python programmer. Peter Norvig is someone you will want to learn with. Each week his lesson explored different concepts in computer science. His lectures had a different them each week and made for a very interesting experience. Be prepared to work hard and learn about the power of Python and some elegant ways to solve some tough problems.
  • Anonymous
    Too little previous programming experience and familiarity to CS concepts might lead to frustration here.

    There is a quite a large gap between the level of this course and that of the introductory CS101 (Udacity) or Interactive Python (Coursera).
  • Anonymous
    It is a fantastic class. Very challenging. Norvig is a virtuoso at problem solving and Python programming. It is not introductory, it is a great help to people who already know programming and some Python. It can move them (us) to a new higher level. Many quizzes and program assignments with good feedback.
  • Anonymous
    This is very helpful for increase skills and knowledge.this is best course and very helpful and any can learn and gain his knowledge. For a good work.
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