CS312 Fall 2004 Announcement Archive

[12/16/2004] We expect grades to be available around 2 am.
[12/16/2004] Good luck!
[12/15/2004] The final will be held on December 16, in the Kaufmann Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. The exam starts at 3 pm.
[12/15/2004] The material for the exam includes everything discussed in class, in section, and everything that appears in the lecture notes for lectures 1 to 26, section notes, and homeworks. The last topics are modular programming / interfaces / specifications / refactoring. The conclusions and subsequent discussion from lecture 27 are not part of the exam material.
[12/15/2004] Check our our list of suggested problems and solutions to selected problems. You can find both here.
[12/15/2004] We will have two review sessions from 6 to 7, and 7 to 8, respectively, on Wednesday, December 15. Both sessions will be held in 203 Phillips.
[12/14/2004] Alan has scheduled extra office hours for the final:
Drop-in -- 12-3 Wednesday (check Systems Lab or 338 Upson)
By appointment -- any time before the exam.
[12/14/2004] As announced previously (see below), Tibor will have regular (i.e. not "open") office hours today (Tuesday) from 9 till noon. If you have not picked up your homework during open office hours yesterday, you can do it now. Homeworks will also be available during the review session.
[12/09/2004] You can pick up your graded homeworks during Tibor's office hours on Monday (12/13) or Tuesday (12/14).
[12/09/2004] Both the "open office hours" on Monday (12/13) and the review session on Wednesday (12/15) will be in 203 Phillips Hall. Both meetings will run from 6 to 8 (but we can go on longer if there is enough interest).
[12/07/2004] The final will be held on December 16, in the Kaufmann Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. The exam starts at 3 pm. The material for the exam includes everything discussed in class, in section, and everything that appears in the lecture notes (exception: lecture notes for the concluding lecture), section notes, and homeworks.
[12/07/2004] The lecture notes for lecture 25 contain approximately 15 problems on the evaluator - we strongly recommend that you try to solve them. Sample finals will be made available tonight. More problems will be posted on Wednesday (12/07). Solutions to selected problems will be released in the evening of Monday, December 13, after the open office hours.
[12/07/2004] Tibor will offer supplementary office hours on Thursday (12/09), from 2 to 5 pm. There will be "open office" hours on Monday, 12/13, from 6 to 8 pm. Regular office hours will be offered on Tuesday (12/14), from 9 to 12. We will have two review sessions on Wednesday, 12/15, running from 6 to 7, and from 7 to 8 pm.
[12/07/2004] We will continue to monitor the newsgroup and answer questions posted there - please keep doing the same.
[11/30/2004] As many of you know, the finals for CS280 and CS312 are on the same day, but they do not overlap. Based on the count we took today, almost 15 people are enrolled in both classes (we have no similar similar problem with any other course). Both exams are likely to require substatial effort, and taking them on the same day might be difficult for some. In recognition of this, a makeup CS280 exam has been scheduled for December 15 (we decided on CS280 to accomodate CS280 students who have conflicts with courses other than CS312).
[12/07/2004] You can pick up your graded homework during Tibor's office hours on Thursday (12/09). Regrade requests for this homework are due no later than Tuesday, December 15. If you have any other regrade concern, please contact the course staff as soon as possible. We will not accept regrade requests for anything but the final after Tuesday, December 15.
[11/05/2004] Tibor will offer supplementary office hours on Monday (12/6) from 1:30 to 5 pm, and on Tuesday (12/7) from 10 to 1. Regular office hours on Tuesday from 4 to 5 pm will not be offered. Further supplementary office hours announcements will be posted from time to time here, as schedule constraints become more clear.
[11/05/2004] Even if you submitted your homework early, we still suggest that you follow the discussions on the newsgroup. Should it be necessary, you can submit a corrected file.
[11/28/2004] Welcome back from Thanksgiving break!
We have posted a long series of announcements on the course newsgroup; please read them there.
[11/28/2004] Tibor will offer supplementary office hours on Tuesday, November 30, from 2 to 5 pm, on Wednesday, December 1, from 2 to 4, and on Thursday, December 2, from 2 to 5 pm. Further supplementary office hours will be held until the day of the final; please follow the announcements posted here and on the newsgroup. The course staff will continue to offer regular office hours this week.
[11/22/2004} As announced in class, Tibor will offer numerous supplementary office hours in the runup to the final. The schedule of these office hours will be typically announced at the beginning of each week for the respective week. This week, Tibor will have office hours from 2 to 5 pm on Tuesday, and from 2 to 4 on Wednesday. Due to the Thanksgiving break, this week will be shorter than usual; as most students will leave town, no supplementary office hours are planned in the second half of the week. If you have a question during the break, post your question to the newsgroup, or send email to the course staff.
[11/17/2004] I have just made available the grades for prelim 2. The exam was graded out of 100 points; the mean is 71.12, the standard deviation is 17.92. The histogram of grades is available here.
Please check that your grade has been recorded correctly. If you have questions about your grade, please ask for clarifications from the person who graded the respective problem(s). If necessary, please submit a regrade request within the next two weeks.
If you got one of the high grades, congratulations! If you got one of the lowest grades, we recommend that you talk to Tibor and to the TAs to find the best ways to improve your performance.
[11/11/2004] Tibor's office hours on Tuesday will be offered on a normal schedule. If you have a last minute question, stop by!
[11/10/2004] We have scheduled a review session from 6 to at least 8 pm on Monday, November 15. The review session will be held in 101 Phillips. We will have a short break around 7 pm to allow late-comers to join us. We encourage you to come to this meeting.
[11/10/2004] Reminder: the second prelim will be held on Tuesday, November 16; it starts at 7:30 pm in Upson B17. This week (November 8-12) we will offer consulting hours based on the "light" schedule. On Sunday, November 14, and Monday, November 15, we will offer consulting based on the heavy schedule. There will be no consulting on Tueday, November 16.
[11/10/2004] An "open office hour" has been scheduled for Thursday, November 11; it starts at 6 pm in 203 Phillips. Tibor will be available to answer your questions on any course-related issue until at least 7 pm.
[11/04/2004] Reminder: the second prelim will be held on Tuesday, November 16; it starts at 7:30 pm in Upson B17. This week (November 8-12) we will offer consulting hours based on the "light" schedule. On Sunday, November 14, and Monday, November 15, we will offer consulting based on the heavy schedule. There will be no consulting on Tueday, November 16.
Pending room reservation confirmations, Tibor has tentatively scheduled a review session for Monday, November 14, and supplementary "open office hours" for Thursday afternoon. Times and locations will be announced as soon as room reservations are confirmed.
[10/27/2004] Tibor will have suplementary office hours on Wednesday, October 27, from 4.30 to 5.30 pm. Further supplementary office hours will be offered on November 3 (Wednesday) and November 4 (Thursday), from 4.30 to 5.30 pm on both days. Regular office hours on Tuesday, November 2 will be held as usual. Access to the top two floors of Upson Hall is restricted after 5 pm. If you come late and you can not get in, please call Tibor in his office (phone number available on course info web page).
[10/15/2004] I have just made available on CMS the grades for prelim 1. The grade distribution is balanced - the median and mean are within less than .5 points from one another at 66 points. The standard deviation is just under 13 points. We will hand out exams in section on Monday; TAs will also conduct a general discussion on the exam topics. If you did well on this exam, congratulations! If you think you could have done better, there is plenty of time for that. There are too more exams and two homeworks ahead of you - cummulatively they represent a significantly higher percentage of your grade than prelim 1. It is not rare for students' performance to improve markedly after prelim 1. To achieve such improvement, however, you will need to do some work. The course staff and myself are happy to help you improve your performance; stop by and talk to us. You all had a hard week - enjoy your weekend and see you next week!
[10/15/2004] Here is the histogram of grades for prelim 1 (the exam was graded out of 95 points).
[10/14/2004] I have posted the solution to problem 1 of PS3 here. Solutions to problems 2 and 3 have been made available as a handout in lecture today. More copies are available outside Tibor's office.
[10/14/2004] Prelim 1 will be held in Upson B17, starting at 7:30 pm. Reminder: all material that appears in lecture or section notes, that has been assigned as homework, or that has been discussed in class or section is fair game. We will not ask you to mechanically reproduce an algorithm presented in class, but you might be required to apply it, modify some aspect of it, or to implement (part of) it. You do not need to memorize the substitution model rules; if you get a question explicitly involving these rules, you will also receive a handout listing them.
[10/12/04] Because Tibor will be holding a review session on Wednesday evening, there will be no consulting tomorrow.
[10/10/04] During the last two weeks we have made a number of small changes to the source code of PS3. All of these changes are cosmetic, and they should not affect the correctness of code you have written. Before submitting your homework, however, please make sure that you download the latest version of our code and that you embed your solution into the updated files we made available.
[10/10/04] Reminder: as stated in class, all material discussed in class, sections, or assigned as homework can be tested on the exam.
[10/10/04] The review sessions for prelim 1 will be held on Wednesday, October 13, in 203 Phillips, starting at 6 and 7 pm. No new material will be presented; this is really an opportunity for you to ask questions and clarify any issues you might have. Come prepared! We will have a break at 7 pm to give latecomers a chance to join us. Within reasonable limits, we will go on as long as there are questions.
[10/08/04] The e_fact example in PS3 requires the use of the equality operator. A sentence has been added explicitly requiring you to implement this operator, together with operator <. This clarification, and a small small number of fixed minor typos are highlighted using a red font in the text.
[10/07/04] Sample prelims have been made available (see below).
[10/07/04] In light of the upcoming prelim, Tibor will offer supplementary office hours in his office on Friday, October 8, from 4 to 6 pm. The two top floors of Upson Hall are locked after 5 pm, so try to come in early. If you arrive later, call Tibor in his office so that he can open the door for you.
[10/07/04] Reminder: There will be a review session in the evening of October 13. Check this site for updates on room and time info.
[10/04/04] Tuesday's consulting session will be held between 4:30 and 7:30 pm in the usual room. We brought the usual consulting time forth, so that it does not overlap with the evening's (non-cs312) prelim schedule.
[10/04/04] Monday's and Wednesday's consulting hours will be held based on the "heavy week" schedule. We are trying to schedule Tuesday's consulting so that it does not overlap with the prelims held on that day. Check back for updates.
[10/03/04] To make them more accessible, Tibor moved his office hours to the interval from 4:00 to 5:00 pm on Tuesdays.
[10/03/04] Consultants will be available on Sunday. October 3, according to the "heavy week" schedule.
[10/03/04] Consulting for PS3 and prelim 1: As announced previously, this week we will do our best to provide you with plenty of opportunities to clarify questions on PS3 and on the upcoming prelim 1. We plan to offer plenty of consulting/office hours every day this week. We will announce the full schedule as soon as possible. As consultants themselves have a high workload during this period, expect the schedule to change, so check this page frequently.
Tibor will offer a review session in the evening of October 13, 2004. Room and precise time will be announced shortly. The meeting will last, within reasonable limits, as long as there are questions. Solutions for PS3 will be available at that time as well.
We made a change to the BINOMIAL signature. The change does not affect the correctness of any code you might have already written. To open structure Binomial, for example, you can issue the command open Binomial. After this, you can refer to Node without having to qualify it as Binomial.Node.
Harlan's office hours on Monday, September 27, are cancelled. He will schedule make-up office hours as the earliest possible date, to be announced in the second half of the week.
Reminder: keep up with newsgroup postings - many of your questions are likely to be answered there.
Homework 3 is now available. The homework is due at 12:01 am on October 13. Think of this assignment as being really due on the 9th, with a grace period of 4 more days. Start early! The university calendar lists prelims on the 7th and 14th of October, so this schedule should allow for a leasurely submission just before the Fall break that starts on the 9th, or - should you want to work on this longer - sometime during the break. We will offer consulting every day in the period October 3-8. Currently, we do not plan to offer consulting during Fall break. The course staff will make an effort to monitor the newsgroup during the break, but a short response time is not guaranteed.
[09/21/04 We have graded homework 2. Grades are available on CMS; printouts will be handed out on Wednesday, 09/22, in section.
[09/14/04] As announced in class, this week only, Tibor's office hours will be on Thursday, from 1:30 to 2:30 pm.
[09/12/04] To accomodate the deadline of PS2, in the period 09/12 to 09/19 we will offer the following consulting hours: Tuesday (09/14), 7-10, Wednesday (09/15), 7-10, Friday (09/17), 7-10, Sunday (09/19), 7-12.
[09/12/04] For PS2, and for future assignments, we might occasionally add clarifications to the homework text to eliminate potential ambiguities. We mark these changes in red.
[09/10/04} We fixed a typo in the description of the Towers of Hanoi algorithm.
[09/09/04] We posted PS2. Take a look at it!
[09/06/04] We released the grades for homework 1, they are available from CMS.
[09/07/04] Harlan's office hours have been posted.
[09/07/04] Alan's contact details and office hours have been updated.
[09/02]Alan's contact details have been updated. Harlan shall teach the first section and Alan the latter two.
[09/02]Alex has scheduled Sunday consulting hours for 7-10pm in Upson 360
[09/01]We have fixed a typo that prevented file style.sml in PS1 to compile.
[09/01]Net ids have been added to CMS - you should be able to log in now. I used the last list available from the registrar; if you were not on it, please send email to Alan or Harlan and ask them to add you.
[09/01]A new TA! Starting tomorrow, Alan Shieh will replace Wojtek.
[09/01]For those of you who can't make it to the first two sections, we have created a third one. It will be held in Thurston 202, from 4:40 to 5.30 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays.
[09/01]Software demos and help with software installation will be offered tonight and tomorrow during consulting. We have reserved the CIT lab in Upson B7 from 7:00 to 8.30 pm on Wednesday, 09/01, and from 10:30 to 11:30 on Thursday, 09/02. If you have a laptop and you can't get the software to work, download onto it the zipped files from the course web site and bring it in! Except for the period for which we reserved the lab, the consultants will be available in 360 Upson.
[08/30]Due to the remodelling done on the 3rd floor of Upson Hall the consulting office has been moved to room 360.
[08/30]Consulting starts today; be the first - get a prize!
[08/30]Assignment 1 is now available.