News and Announcements

Items are posted in reverse chronological order (that is, from most recent to oldest). See the course home page for the most recent news.

15 Dec 2004 We're soliciting your input!
If you think you have some real suggestions for improving CMSC 201 or CMSC 202, please post a response to Mr Frey's "What you wish you had known" thread on the "General Course Questions" discussion board.
14 Dec 2004 All students whose project 4 grade was affected by p4t3.dat have been sent new gradesheets. If you did not received a new gradesheet and you think your grade should have been changed, please email Mr. Frey
14 Dec 2004 As noted by a student on the Blackboard, some students inadvertently lost points for project 4, test 3. We are investigating this issue and affected students will receive a new gradesheet shortly. Please do not email Mr. Frey, Mr. Raouf or Patrick.
09 Dec 2004 The Computer Science Help Center will close for the semester at 8:00pm on Tuesday, Dec 14th.
08 Dec 2004 Final exam review questions have been post and a discussion board has been established.
07 Dec 2004 TAs will be holding office hours this Friday. Please note that Carrie's office hours are 10 - 1 this week instead of 12 - 3. Also note that Mr. Frey, Mr. Raouf and the TAs will NOT be holding regular office hours after Dec 14th (last day of class), but will be available for appointments.
07 Dec 2004 Because of the manner in which we are implementing our templates and template functions (i.e. in a separate .cpp file), the manner in which we define a template function (e.g operator<<) as a friend of a template class (e.g Truck), requires special syntax. The template lecture notes have been modified to reflect this special syntax.
29 Nov 2004 Project 5 posted.
22 Nov 2004 The Computer Science Help Center will close at 2:00pm on Wednesday, Nov 24th and will reopen on Monday, Nov. 29th at 10:00am.
17 Nov 2004 Just a reminder that there are NO LABS the week of Thanksgiving. Have a happy holiday.
16 Nov 2004 Patrick G will be holding office hours from 3:00 - 6:00 (rather than 2:30 - 5:30) this Thursday only
15 Nov 2004 Please note that the deadline for requesting project 2 and midterm grade corrections has passed.
11 Nov 2004 Mr. Dan Hood will be making a presentation on the best ways to work from home. The presentation will be Wednesday Nov 17th at 1:00pm in LH 7 (in the ITE building). Check out this announcement for more details.
10 Nov 2004 Read an update to project 4 that may save you some work.
10 Nov 2004 For those who are serious about C++ coding, Mr. Raouf and Mr. Frey recommend that you check out a new (Sept 2004) book titled "C++ Coding Standard - 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices" by Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu (Addison-Wesley C++ In-Depth Series, ISBN 0-321-11358-6, paperback, cover price $34.99) In addition to coding standards, the book contains insight into class design and specific topics such as functions/operator, inheritance, template and genericity, error handling, and more. (No, neither of us work for A-W).
08 Nov 2004 Project 4 has been posted. A BlackBoard discussion board has also been established.
Note: In anticipation of your requests, the project due date has been rescheduled from Wednesday Nov 24th (the day before Thanksgiving) to Sunday Nov 28th.
Be advised that little or no assistance will be availabe after Nov 24th.
02 Nov 2004 Due to schedule change, Mr Frey will no longer be holding office hours on Wednesday afternoon (3:15 - 4:00). Mr. Frey is still available for appointments on Wednesday mornings.
28 Oct 2004 A Truck operation has been removed from Project 3
24 Oct 2004 Project 3 has been posted. A BlackBoard discussion board has also been established.
11 Oct 2004 Exam 1 review questions have been posted. A BlackBoard discussion board has also been established.
09 Oct 2004 In response to student requests, Mr. Frey's solution to Project 2 for Spring 2004 is now available. The files are located in Mr. Frey's public directory -- /afs/umbc.edu/users/d/e/dennis/pub/CMSC202/Spring04Proj2.
08 Oct 2004Project 2 extra credit output is now available in Mr. Frey's public directory (/afs/umbc.edu/users/d/e/dennis/pub/CMSC202/p2). The command file p2EC.cmds was used to produce the output found in p2EC.out
06 Oct 2004 Lab grades are now available for your review on BlackBoard. To view your grades, click the "Tools" button and then the ""View Grades" link (bottom of the list). Be sure to verify your lab grades from time to time throughout the semester and see your TA if you feel there's a discrepancy.
06 Oct 2004 Just some reminders about project grades.
1. Ms Block (dblock1) is NOT your grader. She only emails your project grades to you. DO NOT email Ms Block about your grade.
2. You have one week from the day grades are emailed to ask for a grade correction
3. If you are in Mr. Frey's section, you must speak with him in person about a grade correction. Mr. Frey does not honor grade correction requests via email.
4. If you are in Mr. Raouf's sections, you should speak with his TA -- Pat Gillespie -- about grade correction if you are unable to see Mr. Raouf
5. Only ask for a grade correction if you think the grader made an error, not because you're just unhappy with your grade. Have a legitimate reason for requesting a grade correction.
06 Oct 2004 Work has begun on compiling a list of common g++ compiler and linker errors that you're likely to encounter as you write code for your projects. The first version of the list is now available. The list will be updated without notice from time to time.
02 Oct 2004 The sample output for project 2 has been replaced since it was not from Proj2Cmds.dat as advertised. The new sample output is from Proj2Cmds.dat.
30 Sep 2004 An important new service has been added to the Truck class description for project 2.
28 Sep 2004 A typo in Project 2 regarding the RoundToy constructor has been corrected.
27 Sep 2004
Project 2 has been posted. A Blackboard discussion board has been created. Note the Wednesday night deadline
21 Sep 2004
Still having trouble with Unix? Check out these class notes from CMSC 121
20 Sep 2004
A couple of clarifications to Project 1 have been posted.
13 Sep 2004
Project 1 has been posted. A Blackboard discussion board has been created.
The Computer Science Help Center opens today.
12 Sep 2004
Lab assignments may be found at http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ckelley1/labs. These descriptions are provided so that you may give some thought to the assignment prior to your lab. Please remember that All lab assignments must be completed in the lab
04 Sep 2004
An announcement from the Linux User's Group (LUG)
Hear ye, hear ye! There will be a Linux Installfest on September 12th from 1 to 6 PM, at which the good geeks of UMBC's Linux Users Group will be available to put Linux on your PC. Linux can be installed on your machine in place of Windows, or along-side it. The following rules and suggestions ought to be kept in mind:
* To save time, PLEASE DEFRAGMENT YOUR HARD DRIVE before you come. This will shorten your install time by several hours.
* Please, BRING YOUR OWN MONITOR. We cannot provide monitors for everyone.
* The LUG will do all it can to preserve your data, but fubars do happen. Therefore you should BACK UP YOUR DATA if at all possible.
* The last install will begin at 4:30 PM, so you should come before then. On a slow computer, installation could take several hours.
*The installfest is being held in the atrium (lobby) on the first floor of the Engineering/Computer Science building.
31 Aug 2004
Welcome to CMSC 202! Visit this page often for news, announcements and project updates.