CS 1044, Intro. Programming in C, Fall 1999
Information provided here is for the 2:00 MWF Engel Hall section only.
12/16/99 Final Grades
Your final grades are posted here. Please check them and make sure the grades have been recorded correctly. If there is a mistake and it is not corrected now there is little chance to correct it after Friday afternoon. If you find a mistake please notify Srinidhi and Jason immediately.
12/13/99 Projects Regraded
If you lost points on the outline for Project 4 or 5 then you should have gotten email with your grade for one or both of those projects after I regraded them. If you lost points and did not get email then contact Jason.
12/11/99 End of the Year Stuff
12/06/99 Note About Assignment #6
Here is a note that Dwight Barnette has posted
about how the EAGS points are allocated for the parts of assignment #6:
I would like to point out a strategy that you might consider using on program
6. It is not a solution strategy, but rather a grade strategy. Since I coded
the auto-grader solution for program 6, I know the weighting distribution of
points for the various parts of the assignment. The term QCA bar chart
histogram is only worth 30% of the assignment. Therefore, if one produces all
of the other output correctly and does not even produce (or attempt) the bar
chart, it is still possible to score a 70 on the assignment. Since rumor has it
that students in CS1044 also are taking other classes, you might find this
strategy useful.
12/03/99 Grades
The grades for project 5 are posted in the grades section of this site. Please check your grades to
make sure they are correct. The grades posted are the grades that will be used
to calculate your final grade. Jason has done everything he can reasonably do
to ensure these grades are correct. If you do not report problems soon then
the problems will become more difficult to resolve. After December 17th there
is almost no chance to correct problems with grades.
For Project 4 and 5 some students may get points back for their outline. If
you lost points on the outline you will receive email in one week informing you
of whether you got points back for your outline.
12/03/99 Final Exam
The final exam is in Litton Reaves, Room 1870 from 7:45am to 9:45am on Thursday, December 16th. Litton Reaves is near Engel hall. Here is a map
12/01/99 Graded Project 5
All students should have received their graded project 5 by now. There were some problems emailing them. So if you did not receive your graded project 5 then email Jason. Please use a subject of "CS1044 Project 5 Grade" for a prompt response.
11/29/99 New Sample Files For Project 6
There are new sample files for Project 6 in the assignments section. You should test your program with all the sample files.
11/29/99 EAGS Accepting Submissions
The Enhanced Automatic-Grading System (EAGS) is
now accepting submissions for program 6
(P6QCAcalc). The due date for program 6 is Monday Dec. 6, 11:59pm. Please note
that the output of the
quality credits in the "qca.dat" is performed to four decimal places, and the
hours attempted is output to two
decimal places to correspond to the "courses.dat" input file. The sample
input/output files on the
assignments page have been updated for testing purposes.
Because the EAGS auto-grader is only designed to expect one input file, only
the "courses.dat"
randomly generated file will be returned in the EAGS email message. Students
need simply edit any valid
sample input "student.dat" to correspond to the returned "courses.dat" file in
order to use it for
further testing.
11/18/99 Test 2 Key
The PDF file for test 2 and the text file key have been posted.
11/18/99 Program 6 Revision
Another revised version of programming assignment #6 has been posted in the assignments section of this web page. This revision corrects an error in the quality credit points for the "plus" grades, B+, C+, and D+. If you have already downloaded the assignment, you should review this revised copy. One set of sample input and output files are posted. Additional sets will be posted, but probably not until after Thanksgiving break starts.
11/17/99 Program 6 Sample Files, Due Date, and Revision
The sample input and output files are available for Program 6 here. Program 6 will be due December 6, 1999. There is a revised version of the program specification available on the assignments page. Please check to make sure you know what the revisions are. The revisions are highlighted in blue.
11/16/99 Programming Assignment #6
The specification for Programming Assignment #6 is available here. The due date will be announced later. The input files will be available soon. EAGS is not yet accepting submissions for this assignment.
11/12/99 Final Exam
The final exam is Thursday, December 16th at 7:45am. The last day to change your final exams, if they conflict with other exams, is Friday, Nov 19th.
11/10/99 P5 Example Files
Students must download the sample input/output
files by right clicking and using the "Save Target as.." or "Save link as..."
options. If you do not then the linefeeds and carriage returns may be corrupted
yielding an incorrect input file. Use IE to download the files as it appears
that Netscape is corrupting the files during the download.
Also, after downloading the example input files students must be VERY carefull
not to modify the files. If you open a file in Notepad or Visual Studio (or any
other text editor) and saves the file then the file may be corrupted. Notice
that you do not have to edit the file; just open the file then save the file.
I would suggest not using notepad for viewing or editing text files. There are
a couple of freeware alternatives that are quite good:
11/08/99 Test #2 Grades
Grades for Test #2 are posted here.
11/04/99 EAGS Ready For Assignment #5
EAGS is accepting submissions for Assignment
#5. Note that for Assignment #5 you will have 5 submissions.
Also, there have been some questions raised as to the correctness of the
example files on the web. Some students have noticed that there are too many
line feeds in the substitution table. The reason is due to the way Microsoft
Visual C++ libraries work. When writing a single newline character to an
output file Microsoft's libraries convert the newline character to a "\r\n".
This should not be a problem because the libraries convert the sequence "\r\n"
to '\n' when reading a file.
11/04/99 Test 2
The second lecture test will take place
tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 5 during scheduled class meetings. The format of the
test will be 30 questions, multiple choice. Students should bring No. 2 pencils
to complete the opscan. Please arrive early so all students can begin the test
at the same time. (Students arriving late cannot be given extra time due to
other classes which follow.) Please sit in seats with adjacent empty seats if
possible..
The test is closed book, closed notes. No calculators or other electronic
devices may be used during this test. Students will not be allowed to use any
blank paper to take the test.
11/01/99 Test 2 Topic Coverage and Assignment 5
Test 2, (this Friday, Nov. 5th), is on sections
6, 7 and 8 of the course notes and covering chapters 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 in the
textbook.
Assigment 5 is available in the assignments
section. The automatic grader will be used for assignment 5. The automatic
grader is not currently accepting submissions for assignment 5. Do not try to
submit assignment 5 until you see an announcement here saying that EAGS is
ready to accept submissions.
10/28/99 Test 2, EAGS, and C References
Koofers for Test 2 can be found here.
Please be sure to "never" perform a submission until you have received the
results of your previous
submissions. Due to many types of problems the auto-grader may at times be
accepting submissions, but not
grading or responding to them until later. You can always check to see if the
auto-grader has received your
submission by using the EAGS Query Tool. Select your section and login the same
as submitting. You will be
given a list of all of your submissions. In the grade column at the right any
submission that has been received but
Not Scored will be designated as "NS".
A link to some C/C++ references has been added to the supplemental materials page.
10/25/99 EAGS Problems
EAGS is currently working properly. There were
some problems with EAGS for Srinidhi's section of CS 1044 earlier today.
There was another problem with the instructor's solution being used by EAGS
that caused the start time and end time of calls to sometimes be equal.
According to the program specification this cannot happen. The problem has
been fixed. If your program was run with an invalid input then you should
resubmit your program.
If you lost points or ran out of submissions due to either of these
problems then send email to Jason
briefly describing your problem. Give the email a subject of "CS 1044
P4 Problem" and make sure your Virginia Tech PID (the one you use in EAGS to
submit programs) is in the message somewhere.
10/22/99 Test 2 and EAGS
Test 2 will be on Friday, November
5th
EAGS is now accepting submissions for Assignment #4.
10/18/99 Getting Help From TAs and Assignment #4
Due to large demand for help from the CS1044 TAs, a policy statement explaining work students must do prior to seeking help from the TAs has been posted. The TAs have been instructed to expect that all students have read the statement and carried out the tasks before requesting help.
Also, Assignment #4 had some typos and other minor mistakes so you may wish to get the new specification from the same place as the old.
10/18/99 WinDiff
WinDiff is a program that comes with Visual C++. WinDiff compares two files and tells you the differences and similarities of the files. This program could be very usefull in your projects. There is a tutorial for WinDiff here.
10/15/99 Assignment #4
Assignment #4 is now available. EAGS will be used for assignment #4 but EAGS is not yet accepting submissions. Please do not attempt to submit your assignment until we have announced here that EAGS is accepting submissions.
10/14/99 EAGS Problems
The EAGS development team has just completed work on and released the application version of the client. The only students who probably need to take advantage of this are those who have been experiencing the "Sufficient Privileges" problem with the auto-grader applet.
Instructions and the download link for the auto-grader client application are available on the EAGS homepage.
10/07/99 EAGS Accepting Assignment #3
EAGS is now accepting Assignment #3. If you have submitted this assignment before this announcement then you should check to see if EAGS still has your submission by going to the Query Tool. Srinidhi and I deleted some submissions because they were made before EAGS was ready.
Also...
In order to make it easy for students' to compare the correct output file to their output file, all spaces are replaced with _'s
(underscores) before the auto-grading is performed. Be aware that the input file will still contain spaces, and you should
process it according to the specifications, (do not change spaces to underscores, the instructor solution will do that for you).
The email results message you receive from the auto-grader will contain the conversion of spaces to underscores.
10/06/99 CS Web Server Down Time
The CS Dept. Web server (ei.cs.vt.edu) will be unavailable for approximately one hour on Thurs. 10/7 starting at 3:30pm.
10/06/99 Test 1 and Key Posted
From A of the first test has been posted as a Acrobat PDF file and an annotated key (text file) is also available for students wishing to review the test.
10/04/99 Assignment #3 Examples
There were some errors in some of the example files posted on this site for Assignment #3. The errors have now been fixed, please download the new examples and use them for testing. If you have already completed the project I recommend you test your program against the fixed examples.
10/01/99 Grades And Assignment #3
Grades for Test #1 are here.
Assignment #3 is available here. EAGS is not yet accepting submissions for Assignment #3.
09/27/99 Test 1
The first lecture test will take place on Wednesday Sept. 29 during regularly scheduled class meetings. The format of the test will be 40 questions, multiple choice. Students must bring No. 2 pencils to complete the opscan. The test is closed book, closed notes. No calculators or other electronic devices may be used during this test. Students will not be allowed to use any blank paper to take the test. Please arrive early. The test will begin exactly on the hour and extra time will NOT be given to students arriving late. The test will cover material from sections 1-5 of the course notes and chapters 1-5 of the text.
09/23/99 Programing Assignment #2 Submissions
EAGS is accepting submissions for assignment #2.
09/22/99 Test Preparation
Links to previous tests for this class can be found on the Supplemental Material page.
09/19/99 Assignment #2 Submissions
Submissions for assignment #2 are not yet being accepted by the Enhanced Automatic Grading System (EAGS). (Earlier I (Jason) had made an announcement that EAGS was accepting assignment #2. That announcement was premature. Check back here for when EAGS will really be accepting assignment #2.)
9/16/99 Test #1
Test #1 will be on Wednesday, September 29.
9/14/99 Programming Assignment #2
Programming assignment #2 is available.
9/14/99 Free Tutoring
The UPE CS honor society will be starting its weekly tutoring program this Wednesday, at 700 in McBryde 133. UPE provides free, individual tutoring to students in 1000 and 2000 level CS courses. Tutoring will be provided every Wednesday night, up to and including December 1st.
9/12/99 (3:25pm) Autograder problems PART III
Due to a bug in the SUN Java Runtime Environment students who have had problems submitting to the automated grader need to download an updated version of the the EAGS Client Configuration Tool for Fall 1999.
As before, execute the downloaded file EAGSConfigTool.exe, (this is a self-extracting archive that will extract/decompress the setup tool, EAGSetup.exe in the C:\Temp directory). Locate the EAGSetup.exe file in Windows Explorer and double click on it to execute it, (not the EAGSConfigTool.exe file). (This process is detailed in Section 2 of the online Student Guide to the EAGS and in the last appendix of the course notes packet.) Restart your Web browser after these installations before attempting to connect and execute the EAGS auto-grader applet.
If you were having problems with Windows 98, this should fix them.
9/8/99 (5:15pm) Autograder problems PART II
If you are using Windows 98, there appears to be a problem with submissions. Pressing the submit button on the EAGS client under any browser, doesn't do anything. Another symptom is that the "Browse" button doesn't work. Prof McQuain is working on fixing this. In the meantime, please submit your code through a Windows NT machine. You can use the machine in 116 McBryde
The autograder is up and running. Several students have already received their grades. I have also verified that it works by submitting a completed assignment.
9/8/99 Autograder problems
When running the auto-grader applet "after" downloading and installing the EAGS Client Configuration Tool for Fall 1999, problems are most likely due to an "old" version of the Java Plug-in. The auto-grader applet utilizes up-to-date features in the Java 1.2.x Plugin that Web browser's default Java Plugins do not support.
To solve auto-grader applet problems go
through the following steps
9/1/99 Program One Submissions
The Enhanced Automatic-Grading System (EAGS)
is now accepting submissions for program 1. Be sure you have went over
the Student's Guide
to EAGs. After you have created and tested your project 1 source code.cpp
program, then get and install the EAGS
Client Configuration Tool for Fall 1999. After installing the config
tool, you can then access the EAGS
Client page to submit and then use the EAGS
Query tool to view your results or wait for the email.
9/1/99 Listserv Active
The email listserv for CS1044 (Engel Hall/Squires/Norris
sections) has been activated. To send a message to all 400+ subscribers
simply email your question to
"cpplistserv@listserv.vt.edu".
Please see the course policies on using the listserv
and email
filtering.
Two things about the Microsoft Visual C++ package:
Information about how to download the MS Visual C++ package is now available. Please refer to the web page at http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs1044/MSsoftware.html. The links on that web page will lead you through the steps to get the software. You will be downloading the "Visual Studio 6.0" software using a "Windows share." There are two basic steps to the process:
