Computer Science 153: Problem Sets

I will assign 4 or 5 approximately 2-week problem sets during the first 2/3 of the course. Remember there are no midterms or final exam, so these problem sets will be a large portion of the work (and grade) in this course. Each assignment will contain a "required" portion as well as several suggested extensions. Completing one or more of these extensions will affect your grade on the problem set (see below).

Problem Set 1

Problem Set 2

Problem Set 3

Problem Set 4

Submission

In writing up your assignment, please create an html file containing your results and writeup, as specified by the assignment. Include links to your code. The easiest way to do this is simply to copy the html files in of the assignment and modify them with your solution, as in the example solutions for PS1.

To submit your assignment, send me an email with a URL to the main page of your solution. This email must be sent before the deadline (even if it's just a minute before). After the deadline, you may not modify your solutions (if you think you will be tempted, change the write permissions on them).

Acknowledging teamwork: If you discuss the assignment with another student (which is fine!), please list that student's name at the beginning of your submission. In addition, please mention the specific collaboration in the appropriate part of the writeup (again, see the ps1 example solutions for a guide).

Protecting files: While you might want to develop these files in your public_html directory, please be sure that they are not readable until you are ready to submit them (preferably near the deadline). These files will be readable once they are submitted (and thus other students have access to them), but I trust everyone to refrain from looking at code that other students have submitted. In case this wasn't clear before, all collaboration must be done in person.

Late Days: You may use up to 4 extension days over the course of the semester. Up to two may be used on any single assignment. Any portion of a day will be considered a whole day (taking our inspiration from parking ramps... just so you can have that "big city experience"), so if you make a change to your solution at 12:01, you might as well work on it for another day. Late days may only be used for the problem sets. You do not have to ask permission to use your late days, but please do send me an email at or before the deadline and let me know. Assignments submitted after the late day limit will not receive credit (although if you submit them, I can still give you feedback, for what it's worth).

Grading

For each Problem Set, the required portion will be graded with a letter grade between an F and a B. That is, a clean, correct and complete solution to the required portion of the problem set will receive a B. To earn an A, you must complete an extension to the required portion of the project. This extension can be anything you like, but it should be of the same level of difficulty as the suggested extensions (or you may complete one or more of the suggested extensions). If you have a question about what is too easy (or too difficult) just ask.