On this page:
2.1 Honesty Policy
2.2 Late Handins
2.3 Grading
2.4 Reading
2.5 Handins
2.6 Collaboration
2.7 File-Sharing
2.8 Unusual Assignments
2.9 Textbook Pricing
2.10 Professionalism

2 Syllabus

    2.1 Honesty Policy

    2.2 Late Handins

    2.3 Grading

    2.4 Reading

    2.5 Handins

    2.6 Collaboration

    2.7 File-Sharing

    2.8 Unusual Assignments

    2.9 Textbook Pricing

    2.10 Professionalism

2.1 Honesty Policy

Brown University has an Academic Code that governs all our transactions. This Code includes a section on Respect for the Integrity of the Academic Process, which establishes its policy on cheating. We expect that you, as students and scholars, will abide by this faithfully and fully.

You are forbidden from using Internet resources for assistance other than those specifically linked from the course website or specified in the assignment. The only exception is pure reference material, e.g., programming language documentation. That is, you can look up generic reference material, but may not post questions to mailing lists or perform non-generic searches that might help you find solutions. (Be aware that we monitor many Web resources.)

Because Brown does not operate on an honor code, we have no choice but to police you. Therefore, we will check for violations of the Code. If we believe you are in violation, we will prosecute as per the department’s and Brown’s regulations; and because we do not like our trust being betrayed, we will not be inclined to mercy. We have successfully prosecuted students in the past, and will not hesitate to do so in the future. We really do have the patience to go through all stages of the review. Don’t test us.

2.2 Late Handins

As a general rule, we do not accept late handins. Some lectures are designed to exploit the fact that you’ve just finished an assignment and may show you the solution right afterwards. Furthermore, the pace of the course is relentless; if you start to slip, you’re unlikely to catch up.

The deadlines are set so that you can finish work in the evening, turn in your material, and still get a good night’s sleep so you are awake and alert for class. We will accept a late handin only if you have documentable, extenuating circumstances.

Our times are always in CITMT, i.e., CIT Meridian Time.

2.3 Grading

This course does not grade on a curve. Rather, I (the professor) belive that a grade should reflect a student’s understanding of the material. One student’s understanding or lack thereof does not say anything about another student’s understanding. Therefore, it does not make sense to make one student’s grade depend directly on another.

I will take the performance of other students into account for two reasons. First, it helps us understand if there were problems with an assignment: e.g., if just about everyone in the class did poorly, that might suggest a problem with the task, and I will lower our expectations for that assignment. The other is to ensure fairness: if two students are very close to each other in performance, they should get similar grades. For both reasons, the course doesn’t have rigid or pre-defined grade boundaries, either.

Brown labels the grades as follows: A = Excellent, B = Good, C = Fair. The course will interpret these the same way. That means A is not the “default grade”. More broadly, my philosophy when assigning grades is to view them as a Recommendation Letter (a Recommendation Letterget it?). We envision a person trying to hire a student with the skills that this class teaches. An A (“Excellent”) effectively says, “This person knows or can figure out how to do well most or all the tasks that might come up!” A B (“Good”) effectively says, “This person can do several things, but may need some guidance or help.” A C or lower says, “I’m not sure this is the right person for you.”

In some assignments, you will get two or more grades: usually one will represent the correctness of your solution, while others its code quality, efficiency, and so on. We give highest priority to correctness for a simple reason: it’s very easy to write a clean or efficient or other solution to a different problem. Once we confirm you’ve actually solved the problem we asked you to, then we care about all these other characteristics as well. In general, assuming you have correct solutions, consistently poor code quality will hurt your grade while, if you’re at a grade boundary, especially good code can improve it. If you’re given an algorithmic problem, then efficiency will be almost as important as correctness, but you should still make sure you get the solution correct first: it’s better to have a less-efficient correct solution than a very efficient incorrect one.

Note that some of your grading will be done by undergraduate TAs. However, ultimate responsibility lies with the professor, and your final course grades will always be made by the professor only.

2.4 Reading

We periodically assign readings. You are expected to understand everything assigned.

It’s very easy to read passively and think you’re understanding when you’re not. This is dangerous. Therefore, you should try your hand at a few exercises. If you finish the exercises as easily as you thought you would, that means your understanding is just fine; keep going. If you find it takes much longer than expected, maybe you should do a few more. If you can’t do them at all, re-read, and then go to hours!

2.5 Handins

Your assignments contain detailed handin instructions. In some cases, we may run automated software on your submissions, which means if they don’t precisely match our instructions, the software may fail—and you will get a zero. Therefore, always assume the submission is being interpreted by a piece of software without the ability to accommodate differences. If the instructions are ever unclear, ask us!

2.6 Collaboration

The purpose of assignments in this class is to help students learn key ideas in the course topic. Some (not all) assignments require a certain insight, or at least careful analysis, that is much harder to generate or perform than to merely replicate. We believe that doing it for yourself, though harder, is the only way to truly understand that insight or analysis.

By default, you will do all assignments alone. You may not discuss these assignments with anyone other than the course staff. You may, however, discuss anything related to the course with the course staff. For instance, if you don’t know what something means, or you didn’t understand a topic, or you want to know the purpose of an assignment, or anything else, talk to them. They will either answer your question, or point you to a reference, or (in the worst case) tell you that you’re expected to figure it out for yourself—but you will never be judged for asking a question.

Some assignments may be designed as pair work. For those assignments, you can and should work collaboratively with your partner, and you can of course discuss your work with course staff, but you may not discuss your work with members of other pairs. The Assignments page will indicate which ones will be done in pairs, and the staff will give you instructions on forming pairs. CS 17 already provides a fabulous guide to pair programming. The last section (entitled “Pair-Programming in CS 17”) does not apply to this course, but you should make sure you read and understand the rest of the document.

There’s one other case of working together: when you perform (anonymous) Peer Review. As that document explains, a certain degree of copying is permitted (indeed, encouraged) in this case.

Note that the point of this policy is to prevent discussion about the content of the assignments. It is not, however, meant to to destroy the camaraderie of the department. There is no harm in talking to your classmates and friends about how you’re doing, how far along into an assignment you are, and so on. Inter-person communication is important, and we want to preserve our great student culture. Use your discretion, but as always, if in doubt, talk to the course staff (even if it’s after a possible violation).

2.7 File-Sharing

You are responsible for keeping your files private by setting the appropriate protections. If you fail and someone copies your work, you too will be held responsible. This is not an obstacle to pair-programming because you are supposed to be doing it together, not separately across a common file-system.

2.8 Unusual Assignments

Unlike most other courses you take, this one may have some unusual assignments. For instance, you may be asked to do something impossible, or you may be given a task that sounds significant but is actually trivial. In these cases, you should focus on providing a justification for your reasoning rather than a solution itself.

The purpose in having such assignments is to more accurately mimic the real world in which you will be asked to solve tasks: there are no “answers in the back”; some problems are trivial while others, which look similar, are impossible, and a priori you can’t tell which is which.

How will you know which assignments these are? You won’t. After you’ve wrestled with a problem for a while and built a hunch that this is one of them, ask the course staff to confirm your hunch. They will ask you to justify your reasoning. If you do and are on the right track, they’ll tell you that you’ve understood the real point of the problem. Stop working further; write up and turn in your reasoning rather than what the problem statement formally asked for.

2.9 Textbook Pricing

The textbook is free of cost.

2.10 Professionalism

This issue is so important it has its own page [Professionalism].