CMSC201 NEWS

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FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE 

  6:00 p.m.- 8:00 p.m.  12/17/96 (Tuesday)  -  Dr.Finin's section
 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.  12/19/96 (Thursday) -  Dr.Turner's section

 Exams will be held in the regular lecture halls.

Net Addiction

Net Addiction: True Disorder Or Just a Cyber-Psycho-Fad?.

On bugs and crashes

1 Teensy Little Bug, 1 Humongous Crash

PROJECT 5 SAMPLE EXECUTABLE AND INPUT FILE

A sample executable and a sample input file for Project 5 are now available on the Programming Projects page. These can be downloaded and used.

PROJECT 5 DEADLINE

The deadline for Project 5 submission is Wednesday, 11th December.

CSCM MCES Network Blitz

The Computer Science Council of Majors will be working with the Maryland City Elementary School (MCES) to help install and configure machines on their new fiber network. If you are interested in participating, contact Mike Huber, mhuber1@umbc.edu.

Game night 12/6

The UMBC MacIntosh Users Group (MUG) will hold a game night this Friday, 12/6 in ECS 336 from 5pm to 8pm. They say "Marathon2 will be played (as usual) and we hope to have net-maps (3rd party ones) available for playing including "Arena of Death". If you have a suggestion for a netmap, email me pronto. Don't forget your serial numbers if you have them. If not, we will have extra. We will also try to run Marathon Infinity (M2 net serial numbers should work) which has new weapons, aliens and levels! Also, if you have a game on CD-ROM which is playable off the CD, you're welcome to bring and play it on the PowerMacs. All attendees will receive a cool Apple static-sticker for their window/ windshield. They're rockin. (You might even get two!) This is your last chance of the semester!"

PROJECT 4 DEADLINE

Due to the gl hang-time yesterday night, the deadline for Project 4 submission has been extended till midnight, 11/21/96 (Thursday). Late penalties will begin to take effect only after this deadline.

  • Quiz two

    • Answers to the extra credit questions for Finin's quiz two are available.

  • PROJECT 4 DEADLINE

    • The deadline for Project 4 submission hsa been extended to Wednesday, 11/20/96.

  • GRADE STATUS REPORTS

    • Grade status reports have been mailed to all students on Thursday, 7th November, 1996. Note: Project 3 has not been graded, so the zero in the report does not mean anything yet. Also only 46 out of 100 points are accounted for in the report. That explains the class average being in the 40s. So remember that the score you have got is out of 46 and not 100.

  • QUIZ 2

    • Quiz 2 will be held on Thursday, 11/14/96. Sample questions will be available on the web shortly.

  • MIDTERM EXAMS GRADED

    • Midterm exams have been graded and will be available in the respective discussion sections. All students must make it to their discussion section and collect the graded exams. The deadline for requests for rechecks is 11/18/96 (Monday).

  • Project Four

    • Project four, TaleSpin 0.9 will be due Midnight Tuesday 11/19/96.

  • Clarification on Project 3

    • Implementing a module interface can be thought of as fulfilling a contract. In project 3, you are required to do only certain things and not others. In particular, as part of the contract, all functions except ReduceFraction() can assume, as inputs, fractions that are in NORMALIZED form. Only ReduceFraction() is required to deal with an input fraction in un-normalized form.

    As mentioned in the project assignment, there are three ways that you can deal with unreduced fractions (i.e. conditions not in the contract) as input to your functions :

    1. Your function could crash. That is, your function checks to see if the fractions are reduced. If they are not then you use the Error function to halt the entire program and return control to the operating system.
    2. Your function could guarantee that the correct answer is produced, even if the function is called with unreduced fractions.
    3. . Your function can be unpredictable and sometimes produce wrong results.
    As an example, the sample executable on the web, fails in the LessThanFraction() case, where with unreduced inputs, it produces the erroneous result that (-2/3) >= (1/-6). However, this is acceptable because it is not required to handle such input. It is upto each student to choose which of the above to implement. All three approaches are acceptable since they are not specified in the contract.

  • CMSC meeting and game night 10/25 (finin, 10/17)

    • The next meeting of the Computer Science Council of Majors (CSCM or Sea-scum) will be on Friday, October 25 at 1 in the Engineering Lounge. Game night will be that evening from 5-7. This is a joint game night between the Mac User Group and CSCM, so there will be lots of machines to play with. In addition, the new pentium lab will be available for games like Duke3D, descent, quake, etc. If you have a specific game that you want to play, send email to Steven Esbrandt (steven@umbc.edu) by Wednesday.

  • DISCREPANCIES IN PROJECT AND QUIZ GRADING

    • Any discrepancies in the grading of projects, quizzes and exams should be brought to the notice of the TAs within two weeks of their being returned to the students. Requests for re-checks will not be accepted after two weeks.

    Graded quizzes and exams will be handed back only in the Discussion Sections. Students must attend discussion sections and collect their graded quizzes and exams. Also, problems with grading should be brought up in discussion sections only.

    The deadline for querying the Grades for Quiz 1 and Project 1 is Thursday, 10/24/96. No queries will be entertained after this date.

  • EXAM 1 POSTPONED !!!

    • Exam 1 has been delayed until Tuesday, 10/22/96. The final version of the sample questions will be available on the web in HTML format, and can be printed out from Netscape.

  • Feed your head

    • Computer science is more than just leaning how to write programs in C. Consider what the doormouse said and feed your head. Check out these recent books:

  • BREAKING NEWS!!!

    • Project 3 has been delayed until Thursday, 10/10/96.

  • Quiz 1 Results

    • Quiz 1 has been graded. Each student will receive an email with his score by Monday evening (10/7/96). The graded quizzes will be returned in the discussion sections. All students must attend their respective discussion sections and collect their quizzes.
    Those who have not collected or received their quizzes can do so by coming to ECS 230 and meeting any of the 201 TAs.

  • Use of functions in Project 2

    • Due to popular demand(!!), it has been agreed that functions can be used in Project 2. Note however, that it is not mandatory to use functions.

  • See-scum to meet on Monday 10/14 (finin, 10/3)

    • The Computer Science Counsil of Majors (also known as CSCM or, with affection, see-scum) will hold a general recruiting meeting at 1:00pm on Monday October 14th in the Engineering student lounge (ECS 3xx). A "recruiting meeting", btw, implies free food. All students are welcome.

  • Quiz 1 solutions (finin, 10/3)

    • The Quiz 1 answers for the evening lecture are available.

  • Quiz 2 postponed (finin, 10/3)

    • Due to the fever pitch of excitment surrounding the upcoming presidential election, quiz 2 will be postponed until after election day. The exact date will be announced by the end of October.

  • LATE SUBMISSION OF PROJECTS

    • Information about late submission of projects and the penalties involved.

  • QUIZ 1 MAKE-UP

    • Students in Dr. Turner's lecture who were unable to take the quiz on Tuesday will be able to take the makeup quiz during the last half-hour of class on Thursday, September 26.

  • BREAKING NEWS

    • QUIZ 1 HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED. IT WILL NOW BE HELD ON 24th SEPTEMBER, 1996 (TUESDAY).

  • PROJECT DEADLINES

    • The deadline for submission of all the projects has been pushed back a day (for eg : Project 1 is now due by 9/25 instead of 9/24). The new projects will however be handed out according to schedule (i.e. Project 2 will be handed out on 9/24, and so on).

  • Project and student information submission

    • Details about how to submit student information and projects online.

  • Source code available (9/11, finin)

    • The source code for the Roberts libraries and the example programs from the text book are now available. If you want to do your programming assignments on a non-UMBC machine (e.g., at home or where you work) you will have to transfer the appropriate library files and install them. However, you should check to make sure they work properly on the UMBC gl machines because we will test them there to see how they work.

  • Project One available (9/11, finin)

    • Project One is now available on the web. It is due on Wednesday, September 25 at midnight.

  • Computer Science Help Center Opens (9/11, finin)

    • The Computer Science Help Center will open on Thursday, September 12, for the Fall 1996 semester. The CSHC is located in ECS-334A and provides walk-in assistance to students in the lower-level Computer Science core curriculum. Fall 1996 hours are as follows:
    Monday 12:00 - 9:00pm
    Tuesday 12:00 - 8:30pm
    Wednesday 12:00 - 9:00pm
    Thursday 12:00 - 8:30pm
    Friday 12:00 - 4:00pm

  • Project One (9/10, finin)

    • Project One will be available on the web this Wednesday afternoon, September 11.

  • UCS Introductory Courses (9/4, finin)

    • UCS is again offerring a number of short, one hour, courses designed to get students started using computers at UMBC. All classes listed below will be held in ECS 333, the IBM PC teaching lab. 
     COURSE				DATE and TIME

 Intro. to WWW and Netscape	Monday, 9/13	1:00pm
 Intro. to WWW and Netscape	Saturday, 9/14 3:00pm
 Intro. to WWW and Netscape	Wednesday, 9/18 5:30pm
 Intro. to WWW and Netscape	Friday, 9/20	3:00pm
 Intro. to WWW and Netscape	Monday, 9/23	1:00pm
 Intro. to WWW and Netscape	Monday, 9/25	1:00pm

 Intro. to Email Pine		Monday, 9/9 1:00pm
 Intro. to Email Pine		Monday, 9/13	3:00pm
 Intro. to Email Pine		Saturday, 9/14 2:00pm
 Intro. to Email Pine		Monday, 9/9	1:00pm
 Intro. to Email Pine		Monday, 9/16	5:30pm
 Intro. to Email Pine		Friday, 9/20	1:00pm
 Intro. to Email Pine		Monday, 9/23	5:30pm

 Intro. to Unix			Monday, 9/9	5:30pm
 Intro. to Unix			Wednesday, 9/11 1:00pm
 Intro. to Unix			Saturday, 9/14 1:00pm
 Intro. to Unix			Monday, 9/16	1:00pm
 Intro. to Unix			Friday, 9/20	4:00pm

 Intro. to VMS			Wednesday, 9/11 1:00pm
 Intro. to VMS			Wednesday, 9/18 1:00pm
 Intro. to VMS			Wednesday, 9/25 5:30pm

 Intro. to HTML Authoring	Saturday, 9/21 1-4pm

  • Source code available (9/2, finin)

    • All of the .c and .txt files mentioned in the lecture notes are available on the gl machines (umbc8, umbc9 and umbc10) under ~nicholas/pub/cs201/.

  • Welcome to CMSC 201 and 201H (9/1, finin)

    • We will add news items to this page on an ongoing basis. New items will be added to the top of the page. You should learn how to read news and subscribe to the newsgroup umbc.course.csee201 which provides a more open forum in which anyone can post messages of interest to the CMSC201 community. While you are at it, subscribe to the umbc.csee newsgroup which has information the Department and to computer and information technology in general.
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