CSE305: Principles of Database Systems (Spring `02)

Announcements

05/22/02
Total course grade average is 70. Max is 102. The letter grades we ended up giving are based on:
88+: A
84+: A-
79+: B+
75+: B
70+: B-
65+: C+
60+: C
55+: C-
50+: D+
40+: D
rest: F
05/20/02
Final exam grades were posted as usual since May 15. Course grades have just been posted to the SOLAR system (which has been either down or extremely, extremely slow, and too often coming back with strange error messages). Good luck!
05/15/02
Final exam average is 79.
100+: 7
90-99: 23
80-89: 59
70-79: 62
60-69: 23
50-59: 4
40-49: 3
30-39: 1
05/09/02
All grades except for the final have been posted. The average of the total is 47 (the average excluding the last about 10 people who missed midterm2 is 49). If you have any question about your grades (except for one-homework free exception, automatically counted in already), you should see me before the final (note this is only about grades; if you have regrading request for P4, see the TA in charge).
05/09/02
Because I was at meetings for two days and I am now too busy, I decided to give everyone a full score for homework 5.
However, we did check solution to Problem 0, and found that over 50 people did not do it! If we had time, we would like to give those who did it some bonus points. The biggest majority finished between 2.5-5 hours. 35 finished in 2.5 hours. 20 people reported more than 5 hours.
05/09/02
Project 4 average is 14.8. max is 21.5 (3 people), min is 4 (2 people).
05/03/02
Please note that final exam room (Union Auditorium) and requirements (bring your id, no open book) are added.
05/03/02
As specified in Handout P4 and in class, please make sure that your database is prepared exactly with the data for Project 3 before the demo. As any other requirement, you will get points off if you don't meet it.
04/26/02
As I said in class on Tuesday, Project 4 due date has been extended to next Thursday, May 2. As usual, it is due in class. We will also review for the final exam next Thursday.
04/25/02
Demo sign-up sheets have been posted outside my office since yesterday. If you have any question about demo arrangements, please email Zhe.
04/18/02
Project 3 average is 16.5. max is 25 (1 person), min is 9 (1 person).
04/16/02
Midterm 2 average is 71.
90+: 15
80-89: 40
70-79: 50
60-69: 40
50-59: 24
40-49: 8
39-: 4
04/03/02
I made a couple of small changes/clarifications, as noted in what's new, to Handout P3. You won't get any point off if you did not accomodate them for assignment P3. However, please do accomodate them for P4 later.
04/03/02
Project 2 average is 17, out of 20+5. max is 25 (4 people), min is 2 (1 person).
03/18/02
Note: All important issues, administrative or material-wise, such as the ones below, are clarified in lectures. We will not be able to repeat all, or even most, of them here.
* What to handin for Project 2? Three items (as in handout P2):
- your SQL code (with comments for anything not obvious),
- your database schema (as results of sq_help etc), and
- your database content (as results of simple SQL quries).
* For constraints that need to be described using general assertions, which are not supported in Sybase SQL, simply write so in the comments.
03/13/02
Working in pairs for P2-P4 is a requirement of this course, unless you have a really special reason. Note: Commuting is not a special reason, since many students commute, and many of them have already been working in pairs.
03/13/02
If you have not sent email to Dipti about your team, please do so by Thursday. Note: If two of you have already formed a team, one of you should email Dipti about it; if we don't have a record of your team, we may assign your members to other teams.
03/13/02
Project 1 average is 13, out of 20. max is 19 (3 people), min is 6 (1 person).
03/10/02
Midterm 1 average is 63.
90+: 10
80-89: 15
70-79: 34
60-69: 46
50-59: 48
40-49: 31
39-: 7
03/07/02
Project 2 is now due Tue March 19, instead of Thu March 14.
03/04/02
TA responsibilities for grading, etc. are listed below. If you have any questions regarding any of the items, please contact the respective TA.
Grading guides, regrading requests:
for p1: Wenxin
for p2: Dipti
for p3: Zhe
for p4: Lujin
for midterm 1: Zhe
for midterm 2: Lujin
for final exam: Zhe and Lujin
Roster, gradebook, teams: Dipti
Project sample solutions: Wenxin
NT and Sybase accounts : Lujin
Other items as they appear : Zhe
02/25/02
For Homework 3, Problem 3, part d, an alternative and better solution is (thanks to Delia Paval) 
   SELECT I.manuf, I.name 
   FROM Items I, Display D
   WHERE I.iId = D.iId AND D.sId = 12345
The lesson to learn from the posted and worse solution is to never copy anything without thinking (it was about the only one I did as it was the last one, and I remember being a bit curious why it needs 3 tables instead of 2, but aren't we too often rushed at the end?!).

If this happened in an exams or a graded homework, you will get bonus points for the better solution.

01/29/02
I've just added a link to Ghostscript, Ghostview and GSview. You may need to download the software to view and print some of the handouts for this course.
01/28/02
I've just posted slides for the first lecture. Note: As described in the first class, slides made for the textbook materials (by the textbook authors) will be provided throughout the semester, but you are asked to take notes yourself for all discussions in class, and only your own handwritten notes will be allowed in the two midterms and the final which are otherwise closed-book.
liu AT cs DOT sunysb DOT edu