The Entity-Relationship Model is a data model that helps us describe the organization of data for a particular scenario (business, or some other need). It was developed by Peter Chen and originally published in 1976. What we get is an abstract … [Continue reading]
SQL
September 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment
SQL is the language of relational databases. Solving problems efficiently with SQL will require you to think in sets rather than procedurally. Hopefully our foray into relational algebra has helped you hone those skills. Some reading: Pro … [Continue reading]
The Relational Model
September 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment
As we being our foray into the world of database systems, our first stop is at the Relational Model of Data. In the relational model, some of the basic components are tuples, relations, and relationships. It was originally developed and proposed in … [Continue reading]
Command Line Args in C++
August 31, 2014 by Leave a Comment
As you're already familiar with, when you call some functions, you need to pass arguments to them. So, what about main? There are two different function headers for he main method in C++ that we can use: and Now, you should ask … [Continue reading]
Data Structures Intro
August 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The first few weeks of the semester, we'll take a deep(er) dive into pointers and dynamic memory management using C++. To get started, I wanted to provide you some links to useful information. Stackoverflow.com - A treasure trove of software … [Continue reading]
Objects and Pointers
June 26, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Some of the previous videos and reading have covered the implications of an object owning some dynamically allocated memory. Mainly, what I'm referring to here is the need for a copy constructor, overloaded assignment operator, and destructor in a … [Continue reading]
Object-Oriented Programming in C++
June 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment
C++ was originally called "c with classes" meaning that it was everything that the c language was plus the ability to create classes and objects in the language. I'm sure that you can see the value in creating a higher level construct over and above … [Continue reading]
Arrays of c-strings
June 21, 2014 by 1 Comment
There are a lot of use cases in which you deal with a set of strings. An array of strings seems to be a logical, first-pass choice for storing them. Because c-strings are basic arrays fundamentally, they are a great topic to use to understand the … [Continue reading]
Memory Management in C++
June 20, 2014 by Leave a Comment
C++ gives you, the programmer, more fine-grained access to memory than a language like Java. An old saying goes like this, "To whom much is give, much is expected." So, because you have more control over memory, you have to take care to handle it … [Continue reading]
It’s Not Nice to Point… But Really, It’s OK.
June 17, 2014 by 1 Comment
Pointers are really important to the C and C++ language. They are actually really important in many different languages whether or not you have direct access to manipulate them. In our on-line gathering yesterday evening, I introduced you to the … [Continue reading]