CS212 Problem Sets
Line Length Policy for Submissions

Due to ridiculous file formats, from now on the submission system will REJECT your file if it has ANY line longer than 80 characters.  Also, if your code contains lines longer than 72 characters you will get a one point penalty, and the reply message subject will indicate that.

Reasons:

• Grading the Problem Set 3 was a nightmare, and "night" was certainly appropriate when we went back home at 4am.
• As I see it (and hopefully other staff members) this course should teach you good programming style, and part of that is writing programs that can be printed, mailed etc.
• I saw today a graded problem set that was probably graded wrong because of bad indentation (and even if it isn't the case, it is very likely to happen).
• Last note: if you will look at my programs in the Swindle directory, you will see that I always keep within 79 character limit.  You might ask why the penalty for > 72 characters - the reason can be seen in some of the problem sets where we tried to find spaces between characters to write comments.  The point - your works are graded so we need some space to write comments, and it is easier to read shorter line lengths.

Possible ways to handle:

• Worst possible way: write the file as you want, submit, get a rejection, fix some lines, resubmit and so on.
• Better solution: keep an eye on your line lengths when you type things.
• Very good idea: when you open a file, type 72 characters on a single line, resize the window so this line fits exactly across the screen, then simply make sure that you never hit the edge.
• There is a possibility of tools that will be accessible of the web that will help with your file formatting.