| Lesson 3 | Project Life Cycle Requirements? |
| Objective | What are the Project Life Cycle Requirements? |
Project Life Cycle Requirements
Required software
To create and submit diagramming exercises one needs access to a drawing tool capable of making a GIF file.
For example, you might choose a tool such as Corel Draw, Visio, or a freeware product. Later in this module, the details of exercise submission are outlined. If you do not have a drawing tool capable of creating a GIF, please click on one of the links below.
Use of other tools
If you use an (OO) object-oriented modeling computer-assisted software engineering (CASE) tool, you will still have to be able to save your diagram as a GIF to submit it.
If you do not have a CASE tool, you might consider clicking on one of the links below
However, a CASE tool is not required for this course. In most cases a drawing tool (such as MS Word draw feature) will suffice.
The course will not provide support for any drawing tool or CASE tools, and instructions will not be provided on how to use any of these tools.
Randomized algorithm
A randomized algorithm is one that, in some sense, flips coins while it executes.
That is, a randomized algorithm will actually have different executions if you run it over and over again on a fixed input.
It turns out, and this is definitely not intuitive, that allowing randomization internal to an algorithm, often leads to simple, elegant, and practical solution to various computational problems.
The canonical example is randomized quick sort, and that algorithm and analysis we will cover in detail in a few lectures.
Optional books