General

People

Instructors: Viera K. Proulx and David Van Horn.

Instructors design and implement this class. They lecture and create the labs, assignments, and exams. They are here to teach from life.

TAs: Jonathan Schuster, Justin Slepak, Asumu Takikawa, Nikko Patten.

TAs teach labs, supervise the grading of homework sets, hold office hours, and occasionally substitute in lectures. In general, they are apprentice teachers and are here to learn how to run a course.

Tutors: James Grammatikos, Trevor Sontag, Scott Lindeman, David Silva, Joshua Coates, Theresa Aristarco, Spencer Florence, Sarah Laplante, Ryan Plessner.

Tutors have, in the past year or two, mastered the material of this course; they help in labs, hold office hours, grade assignments, and can remember what it’s like to be lost. They are here to gain a deeper understanding by teaching what they know to others.

Office Hours

Viera K. Proulx	vkp	WVH322	Monday	3:00pm-5:00pm
David Van Horn	dvanhorn	WVH350	Thursday	3:00pm-5:00pm
Jonathan Schuster	schuster	WVH308	Thursday	10:30am-12:30pm
Justin Slepak	jrslepak	WVH308	Monday	3:00pm-5:00pm
Asumu Takikawa	asumu	WVH308	Wed./Fri.	5:00pm-6:00pm/4:00pm-5:00pm
Nikko Patten	npatten	WVH102	Tuesday	2:00pm-4:00pm
James Grammatikos	jgramm	WVH102	Thursday	noon-2:00pm
Trevor Sontag	tasontag	WVH102	Tuesday	6:00pm-8:00pm
Scott Lindeman	lindeman	WVH102	Friday	9:00am-11:00am
David Silva	dmsilva	WVH102	Monday	5:00pm-7:00pm
Joshua Coates	jccoates	WVH102	Tuesday	6:00pm-8:00pm
Theresa Aristarco	aristar	WVH102	Friday	3:15pm-5:15pm
Spencer Florence	florence	WVH102	Monday	9:00pm-11:00pm
Sarah Laplante	laplante	WVH102	Wednesday	11:30am-1:30pm
Ryan Plessner	rpless	WVH102	Saturday	3:00pm-5:00pm

Communication

Use CCIS email (@ccs.neu.edu) to reach any of the course staff; usernames are given above.

Policies

• Late policy: there is no late policy; solutions to assignments as they exist at the time of the deadline will be graded.

• Laptop policy: no laptops in class.

• Academic honesty: we will strictly enforce Northeastern’s academic integrity policy. You may discuss problems with other students, but you should not share or show code to anyone other than your assigned partner. Violations of academic integrity will be reported to OSCCR and will have a negative impact on your grade.

Computing Environment

You will complete your assignments (other than the first one) using the Eclipse IDE. Though, if you feel more comfortable, you may choose to use another IDE (e.g. NetBeans) or work directly from the command line, but you and your partner must both be comfortable with the chosen programming environment, and the staff may not be able to assist you with issues encountered in other environments.

You will use Subversion to work on your homework sets, to keep track of revisions, and to submit your homework.

Assignments

There will be one problem set each week, comprised of two parts: practice problems and pair-programming problems.

The practice problems will be a series of practice problems that every student must be able to solve. You should work out these problems on your own, and keep your solutions as an electronic portfolio. You may ask the instructor to give an informal review your portfolio at any time, but there will be a formal review at least once during the semester.

In the pair-programming problems you and your partner will apply the concepts from lectures and labs. The problems will consist of structured programming assignments that may be based on the work done in previous weeks, and may also include more creative projects where you can practice your design skills.

Due Date: Tuesday at midnight, unless otherwise specified. We will not accept late homework.

Pair Programming

You must work on your problem sets in pairs. Your lab TA will assign you a partner. Every few weeks, you will get a new partner.

Keep a log/calendar documenting the times you and your partner met and worked together and when you plan to meet next. If the planned meeting does not happen, write down an explanation.

Pair programming means that you and your partner work on the problem sets jointly. You read them together and you work on the solutions together. One of the lab’s purposes is to teach you how to work in pairs effectively; indeed, pairs are provably more effective than individuals in programming. The rough idea is this: One of you plays pilot, the other co-pilot. The pilot works on the keyboard and explains aloud what is going on; it is the co-pilot’s responsibility to question everything. After a problem is solved to the satisfaction of both, you must switch roles.

Every partner must be able to solve every homework problem in the end. In other words, You must be able to solve every homework problem on your own.

All programs must be completed strictly by you and your partner. You are free to discuss the problem sets with others, so long as you acknowledge discussants. However, you may not share code in any way. Submitting code that is not your own will be considered a violation of the University’s Academic Integrity Policy (pages 38—40 of the 2011-2012 Underaduate Student Handbook). Violations of academic integrity will be reported to OSCCR and will have a negative impact on your grade.

If you are having difficulties working with your partner, please inform your instructor. Bring in your log of meetings with your partner to help explain the problems you may have.

Exams

• Midterm 1: 2/8, in class

• Midterm 2: 3/14, in class

• Midterm 3: 4/10, 6-9pm

Projects

There will be a substantial class project implemented over the last several weeks of the course.

Grades

You will get a gpa for your homework (including the project) and for your exams. You must have both a passing homework gpa and a passing gpa to pass the course. For the final grade, we will assign a weight of 40% to the homework grade and a weight of 55% to the three exams. The remaining 5% are up to the instructors’ whim.