COS 226 Programming Assignment Checklist: Percolation and Union-Find

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I learn to use the Std*.java libraries? They are described in Section 1.5 and Section 2.2 of Introduction to Programming in Java: An Interdisciplinary Approach booksite.

Which union-find data structure should I call in the PercolationStats.java program I turn in? Call the fastest one.

Where can I learn a bit more about the percolation model? Read Sectoin 2.4 in Introduction to Programming in Java: An Interdisciplinary Approach. The approach taken there is substantially for computing the percolation threshhold than the method described in this assignment.

Testing and Submitting

Submission.   After you have submitted all of the required files, the "Run Script" button on the submission system will appear. Be sure to hit the button and check that you submitted the right files and they compile cleanly.

Readme.   Use the following readme file template and answer all questions.

Possible Progress Steps

These are purely suggestions for how you might make progress. You do not have to follow these steps.

1. Getting started. Download the directory percolation to your system. It contains the files Percolation.java, Quick*.java, Stopwatch.java, and readme.txt that you need to get started.

2. Union-find. Read Chapter 1 of Algorithms in Java and review the slides for lecture 1 for more information on union-find algorithms. Completing this assignment successfully requires a general idea of how these algorithms work, but not a detailed understanding of the analytic results. (Why? If you think about this question, you will be off and running.)

3. Statistics. Review a few basic facts about mean and standard deviation from any convenient source (Wikipedia is fine).