Most work for this course involves programming assignments.
These assignments are significantly challenging, but most of them are
also fairly small: many solutions take 10 to 40 lines of code.
Many of the assignments will use software that comes with the text
by
Ramsey.
The course will also have two exams: a midterm
and a final.
Homework grades
Your homework grades will be based on a judgement of the quality of your work
and your mastery of the material. Grades are assigned on the same scale used
by the National Science Foundation:
- Excellent work is outstanding in all respects.
To be ranked excellent, the work must truly excel; that is, it must
exceed expectations in some way.
(By definition, it is not possible for the entire class to excel.
The normal top grade is Very Good, and students who consistently
produce Very Good work earn A's.
Grades of Excellent are awarded only in cases of true distinction.)
Excellent documentation will address exactly the key issues, and degree of
detail will be exactly appropriate.
Excellent code will be very well thought out and implemented. Excellent code will show mastery of
new language features and idioms. On the rare larger assignments, Excellent code will show evidence of
thorough attention to abstraction and modularity.
Excellent code will be so simple that it obviously has no faults. Instructors will see no obvious
ways to make excellent code shorter or simpler. Layout will be consistent and will make good use of scarce vertical space. Excellent code will be of such high quality that the course staff would be happy to maintain it.
- Very Good work is of high quality in nearly all respects.
An assignment that does everything asked for, and does it well, will
earn a grade of Very Good.
Very good documentation will address most key issues, with a good
amount of detail.
Very Good code
will show correct, idiomatic use of new language features.
On the rare larger assignments, Very Good code will show that
some attention will have been paid to abstraction and
modularity, although one or two opportunities may have
been overlooked.
Very Good code will contain well chosen names for functions and their
parameters, so that it is easy to guess what functions do.
Instructors may see one or two ways to
make Very Good code shorter or simpler. Layout will be consistent and
will make good use of scarce vertical space. Small errors may
be evident from reading the code.
- Good work demonstrates quality and significant learning.
Good documentation will cover some key issues, but significant
issues may have been overlooked or may have been covered with insufficient
detail. Vague generalities may appear where precise
specifics are expected.
In Good code,
documentation may not
be up to expectations: there may be too much or too little.
Individual functions
will be well organized and readable.
Most names will be well chosen, but their may be some exceptions.
On the rare larger assignments,
opportunities for
abstraction and modularity will probably have been
overlooked.
Good code will get the job done, but possibly in a way
that could be shorter or simpler. Layout may be
inconsistent in a few places.
Errors may be evident from reading the code,
but instructors will believe that code could be made correct
with only modest changes.
- Fair work is lacking in one or more aspects; key issues
need to be addressed.
“Fair” is the lowest satisfactory grade.
Fair documentation will show evidence of effort, but the degree of
coverage and detail will be significantly short of what
the course staff
believe is needed to foster success.
Fair code will contain significant faults.
Instructors may not be able to figure out
what all functions do. Layout may be inconsistent or waste
scarce vertical space (e.g., every other line may be blank).
Fair code may show evidence of a 'clone and modify' approach to
program construction.
Names may be poorly chosen.
Possibly a Fair program could be replaced by code
half its size.
Given Fair code, instructors may believe major changes would be
required to make the code correct, or instructors may
be unable to
understand why the code might be
correct.
- Poor work shows little evidence of effort or has other
serious deficiencies.
“Poor” is an unsatisfactory grade.
Poor documentation may fail to address key issues
or may address them perfunctorily.
Poor code may be undocumented or inappropriately documented
(e.g., overcommented).
Poor code will often be
lengthy out of all proportion to the problem being solved.
Poor code may be laid out on the page in a way that is
hard to read.
Poor code often shows evidence of its history: extra
copies of functions, unused logic left lying around,
old code commented out, and
so on.
Poor code may be so complex that it has no obvious faults.
- No Credit will be received for work not turned in, for parts
that are incomplete, or for work that is non-functional or appears to
bear no relation to the problems assigned.
You will receive No Credit for work that you cannot explain.
No Credit will be received for work that is deemed to be plagiarized.
Submitted code may be examined for potential
plagiarism using
automated heuristics.
Plagiarism is a form of academic fraud, which is unacceptable.
If academic fraud is suspected, appropriate steps will be taken.
Submitting someone else's work as your own is likely to lead to
suspension or expulsion.
Examinations and examination grades
An examination should test not only your mastery of familiar material
but also your ability to apply your knowledge to unfamiliar
situations.
To do well on my exams, you must
- Remember the material
- Understand the material
- Apply your understanding to new problems
When you take an exam,
expect not to know all the
answers.
Each exam consists of multiple problems; you may be expected to read
and write code.
Each problem is worth a certain number of points; the number depends
on how hard I think the problem is and how long it takes to complete
the problem.
Most problems are in multiple parts of varying difficulty:
- There is usually a basic part that is not too difficult and is worth a
few points.
- There is a middle part that is quite difficult and is worth most of the
points.
- There is often a ``stretch part'' that is meant to extend your reach
and is worth a couple of points.
It is very rare for an answer to earn
all points available on a
problem.
Every exam is unique, but on average, if you earn
two-thirds of the
available points, your grade will probably be Good or Very Good.
Course grades
Your course grade is based on
my judgment of the quality of your work
and the degree of mastery you demonstrate.
My judgment is influenced by your written work, by your class
participation, and by your examination scores, but heavy
consideration is given to written work, as indicated by
the following approximate system of weights:
This weighting may be adjusted at the discretion of the instructor.
When determining final course grades, we consider the total
picture including not only all of your work but any grading tendencies
I have observed during the term.
My goal is the final course grades should reflect a consistent
standard, consistently applied.
In a typical class, a consistent record of Very Good homework,
together with
commensurate examination grades, will lead to a course grade in the
A range.
If a significant portion of work is rated Excellent, a grade of A+ is
possible.
Work rated Good corresponds to a wide range of passing grades centered
roughly around B.
Work rated Fair will lead to low but satisfactory course grades;
if a significant fraction of your work is Poor, you can expect an unsatisfactory
grade (D or F).
Detailed information all students must know
Prerequisites
CS Basics. You must grasp basic algorithms, data structures, and good programming practice.
Unix. You must understand the basics of files,
directories, creating and editing files, printing, compiling and loading
programs, and using
make. You will be much, much happier if you also
can write a simple shell script (
sh) and use Awk and
grep
effectively.
Kernighan and Pike cover
these topics at the appropriate level.
Theory/Discrete Math. You must be comfortable with basic discrete mathematics and you must be able to prove theorems, especially
by induction. We assume that you have taken Discrete Math. If you have not, you must produce some other evidence that you can reason precisely about computational objects. You should be able to write an
informal mathematical proof. For example, you should be able to prove that a sort function returns the same set of elements that it was passed. You should be comfortable using basic mathematical formulas with “forall” and “exists” quantifiers, i.e., the propositional and predicate calculi. You should know basic set theory, e.g., the mathematical definition of functions as sets of ordered pairs. You should be comfortable
reading and writing formal mathematical notation, or at least not run screaming from the room when it appears.
Programming. You should have substantial programming experience. Those without
such experience will have difficulty keeping up with the homework.
Proficiency in C is needed for a few homework assignments; if you have a
strong background in C++, some details will be different, but your background
should be sufficient. Your programming experience should include work with dynamically allocated data structures and with recursive functions. You should be very comfortable
writing recursive functions in the language of your choice, as well as
proving that such functions terminate. You should have implemented some of the basic data structures and algorithms used in computer science, like stacks, queues, lists, tables, search trees, standard sorts (quick, insertion, merge, heap), topological sort, and graph algorithms. These topics are well covered in other courses. Prior exposure to exhaustive search (backtracking) will also be helpful.
Some students spend many, many hours thrashing out homework assignments. This
course uses unusual programming paradigms, and the techniques you are
accustomed to may not be much help. Although this material is not a formal
prerequisite for this course, you will be happier if you have a nodding
acquaintance with
formal
methods, including the following intellectual tools:
- Loop invariants and termination conditions as they
apply to imperative programs.
- Contracts for functions,
including preconditions and postconditions.
- Termination conditions for recursive functions. When
writing recursive functions, try to develop your understanding of the deep
connections between recursion and loops; the ideas of invariants and
termination conditions apply in both cases.
- Representation invariants and abstraction functions for
abstract data types.
You can brush up on this material by looking at the
article by Bentley on the reading
list. Chapter 4 of
Liskov and
Guttag has a nice tutorial on reasoning about data, which you will find
helpful in several assignments.
Good Work Habits. The most important prerequisites for this course cannot be taught. To do well
in this or any other course that involves programming, develop these habits:
- Think carefully about a problem before you begin to write code.
- When having difficulty writing code, stand up,
walk away from your computer, and think about the
difficulty. Enlist the black/white-board as your ally.
- Never be satisfied with a “working program,” but strive for
the simplest, clearest, most elegant implementation.
If you have these habits, the other prerequisites are almost
irrelevant. If you don't, you can expect to have trouble no matter
what your background.
Interactions are Expected
Engineering is not a solitary profession. To maximize your chances of success
in 456 and beyond, the class includes some interactive experiences.
- Faculty interaction.
Part of your job as a student is to get to know some of the faculty.
To help you with this part of your education, up to five minutes of
office-hour visits count as part of your course grade. Each minute you
spend in conversation during office hours will earn one percent of your
overall course grade, up to a possible total of five percent.
To earn your five percent, you must come to office hours
by the end of February. While you may find it helpful to talk
about homework, class, engineering, or Purdue overall, any mutually
agreeable topic of conversation is acceptable.
- Pair programming.
Much of the programming in 456 is about your own individual
understanding of new language features and new ideas, and you will tackle
this sort of programming on your own. But sometimes you will have the
opportunity to build something more substantial. And in the real world,
substantial artifacts are seldom built by individuals working alone.
CS 456 will therefore provide you with some opportunity to practice
pair
programming. You will have the opportunity to practice pair
programming on selected problems throughout the term.
No single pair may work together on more than three
assignments. If you need help finding a partner, advertise on
Piazza.
Spontaneous interactions may be welcome or unwelcome depending on the
interaction:
- A particularly useful form of interaction is the question asked in
class. Questions are always welcome; if you have a question, chances are
other people in class have a similar question. Ask it!
-
A particularly pernicious form of interaction is the telephone call.
During class, please put your cell phone on vibrate.
If you must take a call, please leave the classroom and do
not return until you have finished your call.
Class participation
A portion of your grade is based on your participation in class. This phrase
encompasses a variety of activities, all with the same purpose: to earn high
grades for class participation, you must show that
you are actively
engaged in managing your own learning, developing new skills, and developing
new ways of programming and problem-solving. You can be engaged in a
variety of ways:
- Participating in the online course evaluations (both
mid-term and end-of-term)
- Asking appropriate questions in class
- Answering questions when called on in class
- Asking appropriate questions on Piazza
- Answering questions well on Piazza
- Organizing study groups
- Interacting professionally with programming partners and course staff
- Working out ideas with course staff
- Helping other students understand the material (but not doing the work
for them)
Nobody has to do
all of these things; you can earn top grades for
class participation by doing just a few things well. In particular, nobody is
required to speak in class, but everybody should be prepared to answer
questions if called upon.
What questions are appropriate? Any question about programming languages.
However, it may not be appropriate to insist that every question be tracked to
its lair and dispatched.
Professional interactions with other students and with course staff are the
same as those which are expected in any workplace. It is also professional
for you to recognize that a member of the course staff may be present but not
actually available to talk about 456.
Homework is critical
In this class,
you will learn most of the material on your own as you
complete the homework assignments. The importance of homework is
reflected in the weight it is assigned in the course grade.
Most homework for this course involves short programming assignments. Many of
them will be based on the text
by
Ramsey. There will be also be
some larger programming assignments. There will be some theory homework,
involving more proving and less programming.
As in most classes (exceptions, you know who you are), it helps to start the
homework early. But in 456,
starting early will produce
unusually good benefits. Many students find if they start early,
even if they don't appear to make much progress, a solution will “come
to them” while they are doing something else.
Another reason to start early is that
if you get stuck, early help is
a lot better than late help.
If you complete and understand all the homework assignments, you are almost
certain to do well on the exams and earn a high grade. If you miss
assignments or don't really understand the homework, it will be difficult for
you to earn a satisfactory grade.
Extensive details
about grades are available online.
Format of homework
Your written work must carry your name, and it must be neat and well
organized. We suggest that you prepare your theory homework using
LaTeX. We also recommend the
mathpartir package.
You can
download it
directly or install it as a Debian package.
You can also find out about many other useful LaTeX packages from
the
LaTeX
Companion.
There is a second edition, but the link is to the first edition
because it's almost as useful and a lot cheaper.
If you can't use a computer for your written work, write it by hand and scan it.
Any work that cannot easily
be read will receive No Credit.
Clear English expression is
required;
grammar and spelling count. The same requirements
apply to exams.
Every assignment should include a README file that describes the
work. This description must
- Identify you by name
- Identify what aspects of the work have been correctly implemented and
what have not.
- Identify anyone with whom you have collaborated
or discussed the assignment.
- Say approximately how many hours you have spent
completing the assignment.
Extra Credit
Many homework assignments will offer opportunities to earn extra credit.
Extra credit applies to adjust final letter grades. For
example, if your grade average falls in the borderline between A- and B+, the
instructor will assign you the higher grade at my discretion if you have done
extra-credit work.
Extra credit may also be mentioned in letters of
recommendation.
Extra credit is just that: extra.
It is possible to earn an A
without doing any extra credit.
Readability of programming assignments
A solution to a problem is of little value if that solution cannot be
understood and modified by others. For that reason, your code will be graded on your explanation of what you are doing, its conformance to coding standards, and your results.
This page explains our coding-style expectations in detail.
Collaboration
Programming is a creative process. Individuals must reach their own
understanding of problems and discover paths to their solutions. During this
time, discussions with friends and colleagues are encouraged—
you
will do much better in the course, and in your studies, if you find people
with whom you regularly discuss problems. But those discussions
should take place in English, not in code. If you start communicating in
code, you've broken the rules.
When you reach the coding stage, therefore, group discussions are no
longer appropriate.
Each program, unless explicitly assigned as a pair problem,
must be entirely your own work.
Do not, under any circumstances, permit any other student to see any
part of your program, and do not permit yourself to see any part of another
student's program. In particular, you may not test or debug another
student's code, nor may you have another student test or debug your code. (If
you can't get code to work, consult a teaching assistent or the instructor.)
Using another's code in any form
or writing code for use by another
violates the University's academic regulations.
Do not, under any circumstances, post a public question to Piazza that
contains any part of your code. Private questions directed to the
instructors are OK.
Use of the library
You may look in the library (including the Internet, etc.) for ideas on how to
solve homework problems, just as you may discuss problems with your
classmates.
Library sources must be acknowledged when you
submit your homework,
even if you find little or nothing useful.
Some students rely heavily on the library. Although this is permitted within
the letter of the rules, it is better to grapple without heavy reliance on the
library.
Doing homework is the best way for
you to learn.
While library skills are important in our profession, the homework in this
course develops other skills that are even more important. Remember, you will
not have the library with you when you write your exams or go on job
interviews!
Wikipedia considered harmful
Wikipedia merits special warning.
Wikipedia is a terrible
source of information on programming languages. Many of the entries
are just plain
wrong, and Wikipedia's rules make it nearly
impossible for experts to correct bad articles.
Late policy
Homework that is submitted electronically (most homework) will typically be
due at
11:59 pm on a
Friday. An automatic extension of ten minutes is available at no cost to you.
If you plan on submitting your work at midnight, you will have nine
minutes for last-minute changes.
Homework is expected to be submitted on time. However, we recognize that the
college life occasionally interferes with on-time submission. If you have
difficulty getting homework in on time, you have two options:
- For ordinary difficulties, each student is automatically issued four
(4) extension tokens. By spending an extension token, you can
get an automatic 24-hour extension on all deadlines associated
with a single assignment.
Expenditure of extension tokens is governed by these rules:
- When expending an extension token, you must notify the course
staff by email. We must receive this
notification before the assignment is due. (Notification
ensures that we don't post solutions before all homework is in.)
- At most ONE extension token may be expended on any single
assignment.
- When you are out of tokens, late homework will no longer be
accepted. It will be returned ungraded, and you will receive
No Credit for the work.
- If a serious illness affects your ability to complete homework on time,
your first step is to report the illness to us. We will make
suitable arrangements.
- For extraordinary difficulties, such as bereavement, family emergencies,
or other extraordinary unpleasant events, your first step should be to
make contact with us. You must take this step before the
assignment is due. We will make special arrangements that are
suited to your circumstances.
Solutions to homeworks will not be released until the last
assignment is turned in
or until the 24-hour deadline has passed.
Students turning homework in on time may have solutions sent to
them by sending a request to the course staff.
Regrading
If we have made a mistake in grading a homework assignment, you have
seven
days after the return of the assignment to call the mistake to the
attention of your TA or instructor. In such cases, we will reassess
the
entire assignment and assign a new grade. The new grade may be
higher or lower than the original grade.
Computer software
The class will be run using Linux, as installed on the departmental servers
and in the laboratories in Lawson. For remote access
use
data.cs.purdue.edu or
sslabXX.cs.purdue.edu (for some
value of
XX starting with
01. The software from the book
will be installed on these machines, but you can also grab the software and
compile it yourself; try
git clone data.cs.purdue.edu:/homes/cs456/book-code
Stupid software tricks
The Linux servers have the wonderful
rlwrap program, which is
extremely handy for interacting with our interpreters. Try typing,
e.g.,
rlwrap impcore, and you will be able to get an interactive
editing loop with the
impcore interpreter.