Computer Science 314 - Spring 2024
Programming Assignment Schedule and Guidelines
Program
Number
Approximate Release Date Due Date
Always due by 11 pm
Topic
1 Wednesday, January 10 Thursday, January 25 Code camp, warm up assignment. (Individual Assignment)
2 Wednesday, January 24 Thursday, February 1 Creating a stand-alone class - Mathematical Matrices (Individual Assignment)
3 Wednesday, January 30 Thursday, February 8 Implementing a program with multiple classes, using ArrayLists - The Name Surfer (Individual Assignment)
4 Wednesday, February 14 Thursday, February 22 Using Data Structures - Evil Hangman (Individual Assignment)
5 Wednesday, February 21 Thursday, February 29 Linked lists (Individual Assignment)
6 Wednesday, February 28 Thursday, March 7 Recursion (Pair Assignment)
7 Wednesday, March 6 Thursday, March 21 More recursion, Anagram Solver (Individual Assignment)
8 Wednesday, March 28 Thursday, April 4 Abstract Classes, Inheritance, Interfaces, Iterators, Polymorphism, Sorting, Searching, Using Lists - Implementing a Set class (Pair Assignment)
9 Wednesday, April 3 Thursday, April 11 Binary Search Trees
10 Wednesday, April 10 Thursday, April 18 Huffman Coding (Pair Assignment)
11 Monday, April 17 Thursday, April 25 Graph Algorithms

General assignment requirements.

Programming Assignments: Individual assignments are to be completed on your own. You may not share solution code or experiment code with other students or other programmers. You may not use solutions obtained from the web or large language models (LLM) / generative AIs such as chatGPT. Review the class policy on improper collaboration from the class syllabus and how this applies to individual assignments.

If you are retaking the class you may re-use your assignments from previous semesters unless they were part of an academic integrity case or your worked on the assignment with a partner (Assignments 6, 8, and / or 10). However, if you are retaking the class I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to NOT simply recycle your past attempt on assignments. You will NOT learn much if you just turn in your work from half a year ago. A huge amount of learning takes place by completing the assignments and so I urge you to redo the assignments if you are retaking the class.

A few of the assignments may be done in pairs using a technique called pair programming (Read the paper on pair programming to understand how the technique works.). Turn in one solution  for the pair. (Submit the assignment to one partners Canvas account.) Once you start working with a partner on an assignment you may not switch partners. If you do not wish to work with a partner after starting on an assignment you must both complete it individually. You must inform your TA(s) via email if you start working on an assignment with another person and decide to finish as individuals. You may not re-pair after starting the assignment with someone else. You may NOT start working on on your own and then start working with another person. When working on pair programming assignments you are expected to spend at least 80% of your time on the assignment working with your partner, together at one computer, taking terms typing, and navigating.

If you are retaking CS314 you must start from scratch on assignments unless you worked alone on the assignment in previous semesters and are working alone this semester. You may not reuse code from a partner from previous semesters and you may not use code you created in a previous semester with a partner this semester.

It is your responsibility to turn in the right thing, in the right format, to the right place, on time. Failure to meet your responsibilities will lead to consequences, typically the loss of significant points on the assignment.

Programs must be turned in to the correct Canvas assignment by the due date and time. We do not accept submissions via any other mechanism,


Program Hygiene and Best Practices (The CS314 Style Guide):

"The cleaner and nicer the program, the faster it's going to run. And if it doesn't, it'll be easy to make it fast." - Joshua Bloch

"Code is read more often than it is written. Code should always be written in a way that promotes readability." - Guido van Rossum

"It's a long-standing principle of programming style that the functional elements of a program should not be too large. If some component of a program grows beyond the stage where it's readily comprehensible, it becomes a mass of complexity which conceals errors as easily as a big city conceals fugitives. Such software will be hard to read, hard to test, and hard to debug." - Paul Graham

Follow the guidelines of the program hygiene guide. Most assignments have 6 to 10 points devoted towards how well your code is written and how well it adheres to our program hygiene and best practices guide.


Programs must be written in Java, using the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition 8.0 or a later version of Java but limiting yourself to the features of Java 8.

Assignments are due by 11pm on the due date.,

You have 8 slip (late) days in 1 day units (1 second  to 24 hours = 1 day) for the semester.

Assignments must compile and run from the command line in the GDC Microlab. When testing and grading your program we will use the CS department Linux machines and the command line. We will not use any particular IDE. To ensure your programs work you can transfer your source code (.java files) to your CS department account and then compile and run them from the command line. See this page for more help. You can move the program to a CS machine in many ways and log into one of the lab computers to test it. Alternatively, SSHing into a CS department machine requires you to set up SSH keys on your remote system (laptop, desktop) and your CS department account. See this page for help with Windows and this page for help with Linux and Macs.

Note, we may, later in the term be using Gradescope to turn in and grade assignments. This is to be determined. The assignment handout will make it clear if the assignment is to be turned in via Gradescope and instructions on how to do so shall be provided.

Assignments will require you to turn in multiple files. You will turn in a single zip file that contains all required files. This must be a flat zip file with no internal directory structureAssignments that are not in the correct format or not named correctly will be penalized as described below.

Assignments must be turned in via Canvas and must be turned in to the correct assignment. You must turn in a file with the correct name and in the proper format.

If you do not follow the instructions and specifications for assignments (name, where to turn in, zip file format) you cause extra work for the graders and myself. As a student and potential software developer you must follow instructions and specifications. When you fail to follow instructions it causes special cases which require precious time to handle.

Realize there are hundreds of students in this course and only a few TAs. We use scripts to streamline some aspects of grading. Failure to follow the assignment instructions and specifications causes these scripts to fail and the graders must spend more time on your submission. The following penalties are in place because there must be consequences for failure to follow instructions. Please read this account of a student who has seen the issue from both sides.

If you fail to follow the instructions for turning in assignments you will likely lose all points. Specific penalties for failure to follow instructions and specifications on assignments:


Assignments grades are not scaled to effort or time spent working on them. You may spend a large amount of time working on an assignment and still lose many points because your program is not correct or your program hygiene does not follow the CS314 standards. The programs are not graded on a strictly linear scale. Points are deducted for failed test cases, poor program hygiene, poor efficiency, lack of necessary comments, convoluted algorithms, lack of student provided test cases, lack of answers to questions regarding the assignment, and other reasons deemed appropriate by the teaching staff.


Assignments will be checked for plagiarism and copying using Moss. You may discuss high level design issues with your fellow students, but sharing algorithms in any form or code, discussing the problems at such a level of detail that your solutions are essentially the same, or obtaining solutions from another source including a LLM / generative AI such as chatGPT constitutes academic dishonesty and will result in an F for the course. Review the class policy on academic dishonesty.

The teaching staff will grade, comment, return, and post the grade for an assignment within 6 days. A grade can only be disputed within the following 5 days. (This isn't a weekend bazaar. If there is an error in your grade you have one week to contact your grader. We won't go back at the end of the term to look at an assignment from earlier in the term.)

Please do not ask for a regrade lightly. Your grade could in fact go down as a result of the regrade. Do not quibble over a few points. Regrades are for serious issues due to the time required. In the past the vast majority of regrades have resulted in no change in the grade or a lower grade.

Please contact your TA  if you assignment is not graded in a timely and accurate fashion.

All grade disputes must be made in writing by email to the grader with supporting evidence and will result in the entire assignment being re-graded which may result in a lower grade.


Testing and Correctness:

Assignments shall be checked for correctness with more tests generated by the teaching  staff. Your assignment may pass all the provided tests and still be incorrect. Grading test cases shall not be published. If you would like to see the test specific test cases your code failed on you must meet with Mike or your TA during their office hours to see the test cases.

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