CS211 Course Information

Welcome to CS211!

This web site contains a wealth of useful information that we have compiled for your benefit.  Please take some time to review it and familiarize yourself with its contents so that you know where to find the information you need quickly when you need it.  You will be responsible for following all the policies and procedures stated on this website.

Course Description

In CS211, you are expected to learn:

• concepts in modern programming languages, which include classes, objects, inheritance, recursion, and generic programming;
• data structures such as lists, stacks, queues, trees, hash-tables, and collections;
• Java Foundation Classes (JFC), which are in the Java Application Programmer Interface (API);
• the ability to produce correct, well-structured, and readable code.

A complete listing of course topics can be found at Lecture Notes.

Refer to http://www.cs.cornell.edu/ugrad/FirstCourse.html for information about other introductory programming courses if you need help in deciding whether or not to take CS211.

Staff

Staff		Name	Phone	Office	Office Hours
Instructors		Richard Caruana caruana@cs.cornell.edu	255-1164	4157 Upson	Tues. & Thurs. 11:15am-12:00pm Upson 4157 appointments: e-mail Rich
		Dexter Kozen kozen@cs.cornell.edu	255-9209	5143 Upson	Tues. 1:30pm-2:30pm Thurs. 2:45pm-3:45pm Upson 5143 appointments: e-mail Kelly
		David I. Schwartz dis@cs.cornell.edu	255-5395	5137 Upson	Week of 5/9 only Open hours Mon., 5/9    noon-1:00pm Fri.,  5/13 12:30-1:30pm appointments: e-mail Kelly
TAs		Elliott Bäck ecb29@cornell.edu			Mon. 1:25pm - 5:00pm Upson 360
		Kevin Canini krc25@cornell.edu			Wed. 2:30pm - 4:45 Upson 360
		Meghan Desai mpd25@cornell.edu			Fri 10:00am - 11:00am 360 Upson
		AJ Fink ajf25@cs.cornell.edu			Mon 4:00pm - 5:00pm 328A Upson
		Michael George mdgeorge@cs.cornell.edu			Mon 11:15am - 12:05pm Wed 10:05am - 10:55am 328B Upson
		Alvin Jon-Hang Law ajl56@cornell.edu			Tues 3:30pm - 4:30pm 328A Upson
		Lisa Minich lam76@cornell.edu			Mon 12:00pm - 1:00pm Thur 1:00pm-2:00pm 328A Upson
		Maksim Orlovich maksim@cs.cornell.edu			Fri 1:25pm - 3:25pm 4121 Upson
		Nicholas Robert Ruozzi nrr4@cornell.edu			Tue 2:30pm - 3:30pm 328A Upson
		Amit Shelawala ahs26@cs.cornell.edu			Thu 12:20pm - 1:10pm 328B Upson
		Dan Sheldon dsheldon@cs.cornell.edu			Thu 11:15am - 12:05pm 328A Upson Fri 11:15am - 12:05pm 328B Upson
		Hongtat Tong ht79@cs.cornell.edu			Mon 2:30pm - 3:30pm 328B Upson
Course Administrator		Kelly Patwell patwell@cs.cornell.edu	255-7790	5147 Upson

Teaching Assistants

The TAs mainly teach recitation sections and assist with homework and exams. We encourage you to attend their office hours if you have difficulties in the course. You can make an appointment with any TA by e-mail.

Consultants

In addition, there are a number of consultants. These are are undergraduates who have excelled in their coursework and are employed as graders and tutors for CS211. They are available in 360 Upson Hall most afternoons and evenings. We might also have hours in RPCC. See the section on Consulting for locations and hours.

Consulting

Locations and Hours

• Consultants are located in Upson 360 most afternoons and evenings. We might hold consulting in Robert Purcell Community Center (RPCC) given enough interest.
• Consulting runs only when Cornell is in session.
• Consulting hours end at 6pm on a day following assignment due date and 7pm on a prelim day.
• There will be no consulting Sat 3/19 - Sun 3/27 (Spring Break).
• Consulting ends on the last shift on the last day of classes on Fri 5/6.

Upson 360:

RPCC:

Consulting Policies

• Occasionally, consultants need to adjust their hours, which are updated outside their office and on-line.
• Start your assignments early! Ask the consultants for help after you have tried your best and still cannot figure something out.
• Ask specific questions! The consultants may ask you to leave if you are doing something else until a question occurs to you.
• Do not expect the consultants to debug your code and proofread your work. That's your job.
• Do not "hang out" or work in the consulting room.
• Do not store your work in the consulting room.

Want to Be a Consultant?

CS211 and many other CS courses are always looking for great consultants.  In general, CS211 is the launch pad for many courses.  In addition, our best consultants can become undergraduate TAs.  If you get at least an A- in CS211, check out this website: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/ugrad/Consulting.html.

Reading and Textbooks

Reading assignments are posted along with the lecture notes and examples in Lecture Notes.  The sources listed here will be on reserve in the Engineering Library in Carpenter Hall.

Required Text

• Data Structures and Abstractions with Java, F. M. Carrano and W. Savitch, 1st ed, Prentice Hall (Pearson Education, Inc), 2003, ISBN: 0-13-017489-0. See http://wps.prenhall.com/esm_carrano_dsaj_1 for the companion website.

Optional Reading

• Java Precisely, P. Sestoft, 1st ed, The MIT Press, ISBN: 0-262-69276-7, 2002. You might need to log in via the Cornell Library to see the book for free. To download all of the code and get a free copy of the previous edition, See the book's companion website.
• Java in a Nutshell (4th ed), Flanagan, O'Reilly, 2002.
• Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Java, Preiss, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000, ISBN: 0-471-34613-6. See also General Info and Book Website.
• Data Structures & Problem Solving Using Java, Weiss, Addison-Wesley, second edition (2002).
• The Java Programming Language, Third Edition, Arnold el al, Addison-Wesley, 2000.
• The Java Language Specification, Second Edition, Gosling et al, Addison-Wesley, 2000.

Software

Java

This semester we will move to the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) version 5.0.  The J2SE consists of the Java Development Kit (JDK) and the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).  Previous semesters used version 1.4.2.  The newer version is already installed in the CIT labs.  We will be using some features of the new version very early on, so if you are running Java on your own machine, we strongly suggest that you upgrade as soon as possible.  You can find out which version you are running by typing java -version on the command line.  If you get something like

java version "1.5.0_01"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_01-b08)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_01-b08, mixed mode, sharing)

you are good to go.  Note that, although this message and the installation directory say 1.5.0, the official version number is 5.0; see http://java.sun.com/j2se/naming_versioning_5_0.html. The new features of version 5.0 are described in http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/releases/j2se15/ and http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/relnotes/features.html.

Installing Java

The JDK 5.0 is already installed in the CIT labs.  To install it on your own machine:

• Visit http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.html.
• Click on Download JDK.  There is also a link for downloading the JRE separately, but you do not have to do this, since it is already included in the JDK.
• Accept the license agreement, select the package appropriate for your platform, and install the package.
• Did it work? Try compiling and running a program at the command line. See Your First Cup of Java in the tutorial. For a more detailed explanation, try Java Applications.

Development Environments

The best way to develop Java programs is with an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).  We recommend DrJava, available free of charge from Rice University.  DrJava is installed in the CIT labs.  However, you may use any IDE that you like, or just a text editor if you prefer.  Here are some links:

• DrJava: See the DrJava link on this web site.
• CodeWarrior: Metrowerks, CodeWarriorU
• Eclipse: http://www.eclipse.org
• NetBeans: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download-netbeans.html
• JBuilder: http://www.borland.com/jbuilder
• Jcreator: http://www.jcreator.com
• Microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualj
• GNU: http://gcc.gnu.org/java
• JDeveloper: http://otn.oracle.com/software/products/jdev/index.html

Lecture

You are expected to attend all lectures.

Registration Information

There are two ways to register:

• ENGRD 211: All engineering students should sign up for ENGRD 211 regardless of their major, including CS.
• COM S 211: All other students should sign up for COM S 211.

Note that ENGRD 211 and COM S 211 are the same course (which we are calling CS211 on this website), so do not sign up for both!  The difference is purely administrative so that the College of Engineering can keep track of how many of its students use this course to fulfill a distribution requirement.

Conduct

We expect the following conduct of all students:

• Arrive on time.
• Please avoid walking in front of or behind the instructor.
• Turn off cell phones, beepers, pagers, and any other device that will interrupt the lecture.
• You may use a portable computer, such as a laptop or PDA, as long as you turn the volume off.
• Do not read the newspaper during lecture.
• Raise your hand to ask a question.  If the instructor does not see you, call out politely.
• Do not rustle papers or snap binders at the end of class while the instructor is still talking. Wait until the class is dismissed.

We prefer class participation, so please feel free to raise your hand to contribute to the class discussion.

Lecture Notes

We put most of our files for lecture notes, corresponding readings, and examples at the Lecture Notes link, usually just before or after lecture.  Not all material covered in lecture will necessarily be online, so please do not email us about it.  On the other hand, sometimes the lecture notes will contain extra material for you to review outside of class, and you are responsible for this material.

Section

You are expected to attend a recitation section once per week.  Section will cover some material not covered in lecture and provide an opportunity for questions on recent material, assignments, and exams.  You may attend any recitation section, but we prefer that you select one and stay with it.

Registration Information

The current sections are as follows:

Occasionally section instructors might temporarily move their section to a computer lab. Pay attention to announcements to keep track of these potential room changes.

Conduct

Generally, expectations of lecture are the same for section.

Section Notes

Notes and examples will be posted occasionally in the Section Notes link.

Assignments

General Information

You will have six mandatory homework assignments to complete for the semester. These will involve writing Java programs and possibly other tasks.  All assignments are posted at the Assignments link.

Occasionally, we might require smaller assignments (sometimes called exercises) to ensure that individuals do not rely completely on their partners to do the work.  So, usually exercises will not allow partners.  Exercises tend to have binary grading, which means 0/1.

Partners

You must follow the rules of Academic Integrity (AI).  In addition, you must follow these rules concerning partners, unless we post otherwise:

• You may work with one partner or by yourself for each assignment, unless specified otherwise.
• You must work with the same partner for all parts of the same assignment.
• You may not change partners or drop a partner once you have started working on an assignment.
• You may only "divorce" your partner(s) after you submit an assignment.
• You may change partners for a new assignment.
• You share equal responsibility with your partner for completing the assignment and for maintaining academic integrity.

Submission

• You must submit your work on-line via the Course Management System (CMS).  Refer to the CMS link for instructions and required submission formats.
• Assignments are due by the posted due dates and times.  The CMS system will automatically reject submissions after the deadline, so plan accordingly.
• Never e-mail files to the course staff.

Late Policy

You must submit your assignments on time. We normally do not accept late submissions.  Extensions will be granted only in exceptional circumstances, such as acute illness, and only with prior approval by one of the instructors.

Grading

The main assignments receive scores out of 100 points.  At the very least, all of your code must compile without warnings or exceptions.  If it does not, we will not debug your code and you may receive a grade of zero.  We also expect you to follow the submission format requirements that the CMS Info link summarizes. We try to grade each assignment on the day after the due date. We strongly recommend that you review the grading comments, which are posted on CMS.  Each time you get something wrong, we label the mistake with a code.  The codes are posted on the Assignments in files with names, like "a3ggcs211sp05.txt" (Assignment 3 Grading Guide for CS211 Spring 2005).

You may receive bonus points for exceptionally fine work.  If you receive any bonus points, those points are counted separately and accumulate in a single bonus score for the semester.  Refer to Grading for an explanation of how bonus points can influence your grade.

If you feel we have made a mistake in grading, you may request a regrade.  Refer to the Regrades section for details.

Exams

Requirements

You are required to take two prelims and a final exam.  Please see the Exams link for times and locations, review session information, topics, practice problems, and solutions.

Retrieving

We distribute prelims in 363C Upson (M-F, 10:00am - noon and 2:00pm - 4:00pm) usually the day after the prelim.  Bring your student ID card.  Final exams may be reviewed the following semester, but may not be taken from the room.

Conflicts

If you have a conflict such as a prelim scheduled at the same time, you must first try rescheduling the event conflicting with the CS211 exam.  If you have exhausted other means for rescheduling your conflict, you must contact the course administrator (Kelly) at least two weeks before the exam.  You must explain the nature of the conflict and provide documentation.  You might be eligible to take an early prelim offering at 5:45-7:15 PM. We do not usually offer makeup exams at any other time.  If you miss an exam because of a serious matter like illness, see the section on Illness.

Grading

Exams are graded out of 100 points.  As with assignments, you may request a regrade.  If we assign bonus points, these are added to your bonus point total for the semester.

Grading

Weights

Your final numerical score will be a weighted combination of your scores for all required course work, as given in the following table:

We reserve the right to change the relative weights.

Grade Computation

We will determine your letter grade for the course using your final numerical score and pre-determined grade cutoffs as given in the following table.  These are numerical scores that will guarantee you at least a certain letter grade, regardless of how the rest of the class performs.

We may choose to lower the cutoffs based on the overall class performance on all course work, but we will never raise them, which would be unfair to you.

Bonus points may also influence some students' grades after all letter grades are set.

In general, letter grades tend to split approximately into thirds for As, Bs, and Cs.  But if everyone receives a final numerical grade of 90 or better this semester, everyone would get at least an A.  Who knows?  It might happen some day.

Regrades

For all graded work, you always have an opportunity to request a regrade if you feel we have made a mistake in the grading or simply to request a clarification.  To make a regrade request, you need to explain in words what you feel is wrong or what you do not understand.  For each assignment and exam, there is a deadline for regrade requests, normally one week after the grading guide and solutions have been posted.  The assignment/exam supervisor (see Assignments and Exams) will process the requests after the regrade deadline has passed and will write a response and update the score on CMS if necessary.

Policies

• You may submit a regrade request on any graded assignment or exam to correct mistakes or request clarifications.
• We reserve the right to regrade the entire submission.   As a result, we might raise or lower your entire score.  This applies to the final exam as well, which may affect your course grade.
• We will announce when regrades are completed and can be retrieved from the consulting office (360 UP).
• Do not e-mail the course staff to request a regrade unless you have a unique situation that our system cannot handle.
• For assignments and prelims, you must submit your request within one week of the posting of both the grading guide and solutions, unless otherwise posted.  For final exams, you have until the end of the following semester.
• Final exams do not get handed back.
• Final exams are available for review in Upson 363C starting the second week of classes in the following semester.

Procedure

Assignments

• Use CMS.
• Under CMS, view the Help screen for information on the regrade facility.
• In the regrade box, type your request clearly and succinctly. Refer to specific portions of your code and the grading guide.
• If you need to submit a file, or if CMS's text box does not suffice, write in the text box that you need to communicate with the assignment supervisor.  The assignment supervisor will contact you when they are processing the regrades.
• Do not contact the assignment supervisor directly unless the issue is time sensitive.
• Completed regrades can be viewed under CMS.

Prelims

• Do not use CMS unless otherwise instructed.
• Retrieve your exam from the assignment distribution center in 363C Upson.  Bring your student ID!
• Fill out a regrade form, which you will find in Upson 363C. Write your request clearly and succinctly. Refer to specific portions of your code and the grading guide.
• Attach the form to the front of the exam and submit the request to a consultant (Upson 360) during regular consulting hours.
• Ensure that the consultant on duty logs your request.
• Completed regrades can be retrieved from the consulting office.

Final Exam

• Wait until the second week of classes.
• Bring your Cornell ID to the consulting office during posted consulting hours.
• Ask a consultant to review your final. The exam must stay in the room.
• Fill out a regrade form, which you will find in of 363 Upson. You must indicate David I. Schwartz & dis@cs.cornell.edu on the form. If you wish to obtain your new grade from DIS by e-mail, please state that request on the form.
• Give the form to the consultant, who will log the request and alert the former instructor of the request.
• Regrades are usually processed within 2 weeks. You will have to return to the consulting office if you did not give permission for us to e-mail you the grade, as stated above.

Advice

In regrades, the burden of proof is on you.  You must adequately demonstrate how and why you deserve a higher grade.

We allow minor corrections to code in some cases. For example, if fixing a small piece of code demonstrates that your code really did work a lot better than we perceived, you might earn more points.  However, we will usually apply a point deduction for such fixes, so only in some cases will you receive additional points.

CS212

CS212 is a one-credit project course that the computer science major requires. Students may take CS212 either simultaneously with CS211 or afterwards, though we recommend taking them together. Refer to http://course.cs.cornell.edu/cs212/ for more information on CS212.

For students who are unsure on when to take CS212, we offer this advice:

• Take CS211 and CS212 together?  You will likely benefit most from this option, since we try to connect the current CS212 project with the current CS211 material.  Besides a better guarantee of harmony between the courses, you have the same instructors.  Also, you will learn how to balance more than one programming course.  If you find that you cannot keep up, you can drop CS212 and try again next semester.
• Take CS212 after CS211?  You will have the advantage of more experience with programming and data structures, which means your project might go a bit more smoothly.  But the project may have less connection to the version of CS211 you took.  Also, taking CS212 later means that you are delaying the heavier work for a time when you will taking more challenging courses, such as CS312 and CS314.
• Take CS212 before CS211?  Not a good idea (and also not allowed).

Java Bootcamp

For students with limited Java experience, we will hold a Java Bootcamp, which involves about three hours of training in Java.  The Bootcamp will summarize key issues of Java's syntax that are usually covered in CS100.  Both of the Bootcamps are the same.  If you have never programmed in Java, have not programmed in a long time, or feel that your skills are a bit weak, we strongly suggest that you attend the Bootcamp.

More Ways To Catch Up

• Review the Bootcamp notes, introductory chapters in the textbooks, and the Java reference books.
• Get the Java Precisely book, which is listed in Optional Reading.
• Get the O'Reilly book Java in a Nutshell, which is listed in Optional Reading.
• Refer to CS100 websites, such as CS100J Fall 2001, which has numerous examples.
• Review the Java language summaries in the course textbook (Appendix A, Chapter 1).
• For students with C++ experience, see http://www.perryland.com/Java2.shtml to compare C++ with Java.

Academic Excellence Workshop

The Academic Excellence Workshop (AEW) offers an opportunity for students to gain additional experience with course concepts in a cooperative learning environment. Research has shown that cooperative and collaborative methods promote higher grades, greater persistence, and deeper comprehension. The material presented in the workshop is at or above the level of the regular course. We do not require joining the AEW program, but do encourage students to join if they are seeking an exciting and fun way to learn. The AEW carries one S/U credit based on participation and attendance. The time commitment is two hours per week in the lab--no homework will be given. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to seek extra help on course topics in a small-group setting.

Your fellow undergraduate students, who are familiar with the course material, teach the sessions with material that they prepare. The course staff provides guidance and support but do not actually teach the AEW course content or any session. A representative from the AEW program will be speaking about the program and registration procedures in lecture. We summarize the information here:

• Each workshop can accommodate up to 16 students.
• There is one workshop for CS211.
• There is one S/U credit for the CS AEW, based strictly on attendance.
• Content liaison: TBA

See the AEW webpage for registration information and schedule.

Communication

You have the following responsibilities:

• Attend all classes, where we sometimes make announcements.
• Monitor the website every day for new announcements.
• Monitor the newsgroup.  If you have trouble, refer to the USENET Information document for help on accessing the newsgroup.
• Read your e-mail, especially when dealing with emergencies and handling exam conflicts.

To reach a staff member, the best time is office hours. Please post general questions to the newsgroup so that others can benefit from your question.  Someone will respond within one working day.  Note that posts in USENET are subject to the rules of AI, so you should not post solutions.  Generally, rough algorithms or non-solution-specific code fragments are ok if you need them to illustrate a point.

We try to reserve e-mail for emergencies and urgent matters. Something that is urgent is generally defined as something the instructors would find urgent. If you do need to e-mail the staff, please do not use HTML or MIME!  Why?  See this explanation.

CMS

We will be using the Cornell Course Management System (CMS) extensively for many administrative tasks, including posting of assignments, creation of partners, submission of solutions, grade reporting, and regrade requests.  Please refer to the CMS page for information on the use of this system.

Academic Integrity

The utmost level of academic integrity is expected of all students.  Please read carefully the CS211 Academic Integrity Page, which details the policies specific to this course, as well as the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity and the Department of Computer Science Code of Academic Integrity.

Computer Labs

CIT Labs

Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) runs several computer labs across campus for all members of the Cornell community.  The JDK 5.0 and DrJava are installed on these machines.  Refer to http://www.cit.cornell.edu/labs/ for locations and times of operation.

ACCEL Lab

You can also find the course software in the Academic Computing Center (ACCEL), located in the Engineering Library in Carpenter Hall.  Any CS student may register for an account.

Illness

If you must miss any coursework due to illness or another university-excused conflict, you must contact Professor Schwartz as soon as possible and provide formal documentation.  If you miss a significant amount of coursework, you are strongly encouraged to drop the course.  If you miss an exam due to documented illness, you must contact Professor Schwartz as soon as possible to review the matter.

Special Needs and Disabilities

In compliance with the Cornell University policy and equal access laws, we are available to discuss appropriate academic accommodations that may be required for students with special needs and/or disabilities. Requests for academic accommodations are to be made during the first three weeks of the semester and must be accompanied by official documentation.  Please register with Student Disability Services in 420 CCC to verify your eligibility.