Administrative

1
10-25

• Administrative
• Schedule updated
• Assignment 3 available now, due Friday 10/29
  (pairs OK)
• Midterm Wednesday (second half of class)
• Solution to Assignment 2 on the web
• Last Time
• relational operators and the primitive and
  non-primitive classes
• why you don't want to but can use the operator
  to compare non-primitive classes like String and
  Scanner and PlayingCard
• the Scanner and how it works
• the hasX and getX methods
• the buffer
• simple IF-THEN-ELSE conditionals for data
  validation
• This time
• a little bit on Assignment 2
• an important note on following instructions
• a little bit on grading policy and extra credit
• a little bit on the midterm

2
Some Notes on Assignment 2

• Constants in code are tricky business
• celsius (farenheit - 32.0) (5./9.)
• final int NUM_CENTS_IN_DOLLAR 100
• Be mindful of line length (80 characters max)
• Separate printing from calculating, to whatever
  extent possible
• in the poem, get all inputs before printing the
  poem
• in the change maker, get the amounts and
  calculate change before printing (?!)
• Put both your name and your NetID at the
  beginning of your writeup
• Writeup should be plain text
• Never use System.exit() again
• Always use brackets with IF/THEN/ELSE from now on
• Do exactly what the assignment asks for, no more
  and no less

3
Following Instructions

• When you are given instructions on what a program
  or method should or should not do, follow the
  instructions exactly no more and no less
• Program to what the instructions say the program
  should do NOT what you think the program should
  do
• Doing what makes sense as opposed to what is
  asked for
• in the TemperatureConverter, the temperature
  input is an integer, not double
• For example
• if printing a banner welcome isn't in the
  instructions, don't do it
• if validating a particular input value isn't
  required, don't do it
• if displaying an error message isn't required,
  don't display one
• if you think the program should have additional
  functionality not in the instructions, think
  again
• There are very good reasons for this!
• many times in production environments you are
  programming to specifications and you don't know
  the context what is important and what is not
• it complicates things for me if your solution
  differs from the instructions, I don't know what
  was intentional and what was not

4
Grading and Extra Credit

• There are no pre-set grades for any of the
  assignments or for the exams
• I'm not that good at predicting scores
• For the first few assignments I will use a scale
  of 0 to 4 for each problem
• 4 is correct and flawlessly beautiful
• 3 is correct and solid
• 2 is mostly correct
• 1 has significant logic problems
• That means there will be a different number of
  total points for each assignment
• At the end of the quarter I weight them according
  to the percentages in the syllabus, and my own
  sense of the relative length and difficulty of
  each
• Those weighted scores combine with exam scores
  and the participation factor to give everybody a
  single weighted score for the course
• I (subjectively) assign course grades to various
  score level, and assign the rest comparatively

5
Extra Credit

• You can do perfectly fine in the course without
  doing any extra credit
• I will not teach to the extra credit problems
• they are for people who need extra challenge, or
  have a particular interest in the particular
  topic
• I will not publish the number of extra credit
  points for any problem
• Extra credit total can affect course grade as
  follows
• after I assign course grades, I will go back and
  (subjectively) raise grades based on total extra
  credit over the quarter

6
Midterm Exam

• Wednesday, the last half of class
• You can bring one 8.5x11 page of notes
• I strongly suggest you use this for reminders of
  Java syntax
• General format
• 10 to 15 multiple-choice and short-answer
  questions (like the Exercises at the end of each
  chapter)
• 2 short programming questions (like the shorter
  programming projects at the end of each chapter)
• Material covered
• anything in the slides on the course web
• Chapter 2 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 (sort
  of)
• Chapter 3 3.1, 3.2, 3.6
• Chapter 5 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4