Princeton University Computer Science Department

Computer Science 217 Introduction to Programming Systems Jennifer Rexford

Spring 2009

Lectures

Lecture attendance is mandatory. You will be responsible for the material presented in every lecture. Some of that material will not be in the textbooks.

Precepts

Precept attendance is mandatory. As with lectures, you will be responsible for the material presented in every precept. Some of that material will not be in the textbooks.

Assignments: Late Submission

You should submit your work on an assignment (electronically) before its due time. If you submit your work late, we will give you credit for it on this scale:

• 95% for work submitted up to 3 hours late,
• 90% for work submitted up to 6 hours late,
• 85% for work submitted up to 12 hours late,
• 75% for work submitted up to 24 hours late,
• 50% for work submitted up to 48 hours late,
• 0% for work submitted more than 48 hours late.

If an assignment consists of multiple files, then we will consider the date/time of submission of your work as a whole to be the same as the date/time of submission of the last file that you submit.

We will grant extensions only in the case of illness (with a doctor's note) or extraordinary circumstances. If illness or an extraordinary circumstance will cause you to submit an assignment late, then you should discuss the matter with your preceptor as soon as possible. Please plan your work on the assignments so that travel, religious holidays, etc. do not cause you to submit it late. Heavy workload is not an extraordinary circumstance.

You have one "late pass" that allows you to submit any one assignment up to three days late without penalty. If you wish to use your late pass on an assignment, you must tell your preceptor via e-mail before the assignment's due date/time.

Some of the assignments will involve working in teams. You may use your late pass on a team assignment if and only if all of your teammates use their late passes on that assignment. (The implication is that you may not use your late pass on a team assignment if any one of your teammates has already used his/her late pass.) If you wish to use your late pass on a team assignment, you and each of your teammates must tell the pertinent preceptors via e-mail before the assignment's due date/time.

The final assignment is due on the Dean's Date, and we are not permitted to accept work after that date. Thus you may not submit the final assignment late.

Assignments: Collaboration

Programming in an individual creative process much like composition. You must reach your own understanding of the problem and discover a path to its solution. During this time, discussions with friends are encouraged. However, when the time comes to write code that solves the problem, such discussions are no longer appropriate -- the program must be your own work. If you have a question about how to use some feature of C, UNIX, etc., you can certainly ask your friends or the teaching assistants, but do not, under any circumstances, copy another person's program. Writing code for use by another or using someone else's code in any form is a violation of academic regulations. "Using someone else's code" includes using solutions or partial solutions to assignments provided by commercial web sites, instructors, preceptors, teaching assistants, friends, or students from any previous offering of this course or any other course.

You may, however, use any code from the COS 217 lectures, precepts, or course texts, providing that you explain what code you use, and cite its source in your "readme" file or in comments. For each assignment, you must also specifically describe whatever help (if any) that you received from others in your "readme" file, and write the names of any individuals with whom you collaborated. This includes help from friends, classmates, lab TAs, and COS 217 instructors.

If you have a question about what is fair and what is not, please consult with your preceptor. Violators will be referred to the Discipline Committee for review. Princeton's Rights, Rules, Responsibilities document asserts:

The only adequate defense for a student accused of an academic violation is that the work in question does not, in fact, constitute a violation. Neither the defense that the student was ignorant of the regulations concerning academic violations nor the defense that the student was under pressure at the time the violation was committed is considered an adequate defense.

You are responsible for keeping your solutions to the COS 217 programming assignments away from prying eyes. If someone else copies your program, we have no way to determine who's the owner and who's the copier; the Discipline Committee gets to decide. If you are working on a public cluster machine, be sure to delete your local source files and logout before leaving.

You should store all of your assignment files in a private directory. You can create a private directory using commands similar to these:

% mkdir cos217
% chmod 700 cos217

Communication

These are the course's policies concerning e-mail communication:

• If you have a question or comment that will be helpful to other students, and you need not reveal any parts of your work to express the question or comment properly, then you should e-mail it to the course listserv at cos217@lists.cs.princeton.edu. Any message sent to the listserv will be received by all of the listserv's subscribers -- both students and instructors. One of the course's instructors will reply as soon as possible. We welcome replies from other students.
• If you have a question or comment that will not be helpful to other students, or if you must reveal parts of your work to express your question or comment adequately, then you should e-mail it to your preceptor. See the course's General Information web page for the e-mail address of your preceptor.
• If your preceptor does not reply to your question or comment in a reasonable amount of time, then you may e-mail it to all of the course's preceptors at cos217@princeton.edu. Any message sent to that address will be received only by the course's preceptors, not by students. One of the course's preceptors will reply as soon as possible. You should not send e-mail directly to a preceptor other than your own.

Grading

Your final grade will be weighted as follows: