Pedantia: Section, February 11
Section D
15-212, Spring 1998

From sal@ri.cmu.edu Fri Feb 13 19:52:13 1998
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 19:50:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Speck of Dust 
To: 15-212 Section D 
Subject: 15-212D: 2/11/98

Hope the program is going well! Sorry this is so long -- there's a lot to
relate.

-----------------------------

Program #1
Homework Grading
Programming Teams
Roman Palendromes
Program Submission
Grading Appeals
Extra Credit Guidelines
Newsgroup
Web Page
Section Notes

-----------------------------

PROGRAM #1

I recieved an e-mail asking how to have multiple methods (functions) in a
Java class. This is, of course, possible, and it is covered in the
tutorial. However, it is not really neccesary for this week's program.


HOMEWORK GRADING

There has been some understandable confusion about the grading scheme used
on the homeworks. Here's the short of it: Every homework is worth the same
amount (together, they make up your homework grade). Within a homework,
each question is weighted equally with ten points. This is the easy part.

The hard part is that each question was graded on a different scale and
scaled to 10 points. Homework 1 was out of eight points, one point per
question. Homework 2 was out of sixty points, ten points per question,
scaled from 1, 10, or 15, depending on what question it is. Assignments
from our section (Greek, Teaspoon, Difficult) are always out of ten
points. 


PROGRAMMING TEAMS

According to my notes from class today, here are the groups:
  1  Jeff and Chirag
  2  Mark and Sandra (Section A)
  3  Jeremy and Rahul
  4  Anson and Joanne
  5  Bharat and Miki
  6  Ranjit and Fani
  7  Akshay and David
  8  Erik and Weewee
  9  Cuong and Roger
  10 Yasu and Matt
  11 Greg and Manu
  12 Wee and Kush
  13 Lee and Scott
  14 Mike and Himself

Please e-mail me by midnight tonight if your group is incorrect. Also,
regarding team names... you guys aren't elementary school kids, and you
don't need to have neat names on things to motivate you to do them. 
However, I, somehow, have to remember the members of 14 different teams. 
It makes things much easier if I can associate a name, rather than a
number, with the team. If any groups would prefer, I will refer to your
team by number.


ROMAN PALENDROMES

Someone asked me why the thing at the top of handout #7 (Madam I'm Adam)
is a palendrome (the cross-like thing). Well, there are two mistakes on
the handout. First, the palendrome being refered to in the first line was
cut accidentally and is:

S A T O R
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S

And can be read four ways! Now, there's a cross made up of the word Tenet
in there, and the letters can be *rearranged* to make up the cross that
you have on your handout.

There ya go. Don't every say I never learn'd ya nuthin.


PROGRAM SUBMISSION

The guidelines for program submission are now on the web. They say
"Working Draft", but the only thing we might change is how the group id's
are assigned. Please be sure to read the sections on grading (including
programming style) and cross-platform development. Note that the group
directories are not yet set up; we're still waiting on Section C to get
their groups together.


GRADING APPEALS

It is important to review the solutions to the homework carefully, and it
is also true that the homeworks do not count for very much (each homework
counts for approximately 20%/6 = 3% of your final grade). HOWEVER, it is
also important that you understand what you did wrong, and it is also
slightly possible that your homework is misgraded. Under no circumstances
should any of you avoid asking me about the grading of or reasoning behind
a particular question on the homework or midterm simply because I can
assign your class participation grade. I have told you how I will be
assigning that grade, and you are by no means pestering me if you want to
meet with me.


EXTRA CREDIT GUIDELINES

Please read the Section D Extra credit guidelines (under the Links section
on our page). I don't want anybody screwing up other classwork for a few
points of extra credit. Now, if you're going to screw it up just because
you enjoy programming, that's your own business. It's short.


NEWSGROUP

People are still neglecting to read the newsgroup. This can waste your
time; last week, ten people did question six, and none of them had to (as
you all know, by now). I will try to let you know everything you need to
know by e-mail, but some things are published through the newsgroup. I'd
read them about once a day (in fact, I do).


WEB PAGE

I've done a bunch of work reworking the web page. As per class request,
the week's reading are now there, as well as the current assignments. I've
also added links to the Java Tutorial and Java Library documentation.


SECTION NOTES

Administrata:
Homework
	1, 2, Teaspoon of Java, Greek to Me, Decidedly Difficult
	  returned
	Please split your homework (most people did, this week)
	Postcript and text versions of handouts in afs (not on
	  web, yet)
Partners
	Partners, numbers assigned

Theory:
Midterm
	By class vote, we didn't go over this
Conclusion
	No more theory until last two weeks (P vs. NP, then)
	We may use CFG on the last assignment

Java:
Reading
	See section web page
Program Submission
	See course web page
Palindrome program
	Basic structure of Java program
	Basic outline of program

Until Miercoles,

-- Sal
smile.

Page maintained by Salvatore Domenick Desiano (sal@ri.cmu.edu).

smile.