6.830: Database Systems (Fall 2005)
| Units: | 3-0-9 (H) |
| When: | TR 1-2:30 |
| Where: | 2-146 |
| Instructor: | Professor Samuel Madden ( ) |
| Instructor office hours: | by appointment |
| TA: | Thomer M. Gil ( ) |
| TA office hours when: | Fridays, 10am-11am |
| TA office hours where: | Stata Center (bldg 32), G-Tower, 9th floor lobby |
Announcements
12/13/05: Last day of classes. Quiz 2 solutions are posted. Mean was 69, median was 68, std. dev. was 14.7.12/3/05: Quiz 2 is next Tuesday, in class. You will have 80 minutes. The exam will cover material from lectures 14-21 and will be open book/open notes (no laptops), as with Quiz 1.
11/30/05: Last year's quiz 2 (with solutions) is available.
11/03/05: Solutions to quiz 1 are posted.
10/26/05: A brief note about CLR records in ARIES has been posted.
10/25/05: Solutions to the written questions in PS2 are posted.
10/19/05: To help you prepare for Exam 1, we have posted some Study Questions (and solutions) related to transactions and recovery (these are adapted from a problem set we assigned last year). You DO NOT NEED TO HAND IN SOLUTIONS TO THESE QUESTIONS.
10/10/05: The TransactionTest.java test file for Problem Set 3 has been posted.
10/06/05: Since there was some confusion in class today about how to use histograms to estimate join selectivity, a brief note has been posted.
10/06/05: PS3 is posted.
10/05/05: PS1 Solutions have been posted.
09/26/05: Final project details and project suggestions are posted.
09/25/05, 2:30pm There is an important bugfix to problem set 2 that you should worry about if you already started working on the problem set.
09/22/05: Problem set 2 is up.
09/20/05: Project partner lists are due in class on Thursday. Please hand in one piece of paper per group, along with a short (1-2 sentence) description of what you are planning to work on. If you do not have a project idea, that is OK -- simply say so.
09/14/05: Lecture notes for Lectures 1 and 2 have been posted. Future lecture notes will be posted after lecture.
09/14/05: Copies of the textbooks have been placed in the CSAIL reading room (32-G882) on reserve (which means you can't check them out for more than an hour or two.)
09/13/05: Problem set 1 is out. Due 09/20.
Description
This course relies on primary readings from the database community to introduce graduate students to the foundations of database systems, focusing on basics such as the relational algebra and data model, schema normalization, query optimization, and transactions. It is designed for students who have taken 6.033 (or equivalent); no prior database experience is assumed though students who have taken an undergraduate course in databases are encouraged to attend.
Classes consist of lectures and discussions based on readings from the database literature. Grades are assigned based on a semester long project, as well as two exams and a few (2 or 3) problem sets. For more information about the readings and assignments, use the links at the top of the page.