CS2030S Lab Guide
GitHub Setup
You need a one-time setup at the beginning of semester to link your PE account to your GitHub account. Following the instructions here to setup your GitHub account for CS2030S.
GitHub Classroom
We will use GitHub Classroom for our lab release and submission for CS2030S.
Here are what you need to do for every lab assignment:
1. Accept the Lab Assignment
Make sure that you have logged into GitHub.
If you have multiple GitHub accounts, make sure you use the one with the same GitHub username you have submitted to us.
Click on the given URL to accept the lab.
A repo will be created automatically for you.
WARNING
Do not interact with the lab repo directory using GitHub or other git commands.
2. Get a Copy on PE Hosts
For your first-ever lab, you will need to create a configuration file (see the GitHub Setup guide). After that, proceed as per normal below.
Run the command ~cs2030s/get-labX (where X is the lab number) to clone a copy of the lab on your home directory. You will see a new lab directory named something like labX-username created, with the skeleton files and questions inside.
You can edit the code, compile, test, etc, on the PE hosts.
The lab sheet for each lab is given in the file Question.md. You should get used to to reading the question in text format. You can open two files side-by-side with vim -O file1 file2 or in different tabs with vim -p file1 file2.
WARNING
Do not edit your code directly on GitHub.
3. Submit a Copy
When you are ready to submit, run ~cs2030s/submit-labX (where X is the lab number). This will submit a copy to GitHub. You can submit multiple times, but only the last copy will be graded.
WARNING
Do not use git push or other git commands to submit your code to GitHub.
4. Receiving Feedback
The tutors will grade and comment on your submission on Github after the deadline. You should receive both your comments and your preliminary marks on GitHub. You can reply to their comment, etc, on GitHub as well. Communicate with your grader via Piazza (or directly if they preferred) if you think the grading is unfair.
WARNING
Do not change your code on GitHub after the deadline (by either re-running submit-labX or using git commands directly). If you wish to improve upon your code after feedback from the tutors, replicate it in your own personal repo.
5. Receiving Final Grades
A file named feedback.md summarizing your marks will be placed into your GitHub repo. Your marks will be posted on Luminus Gradebook.
Warning
If it is not clear to you by now, let us repeat: You should only interact with your lab submissions on GitHub using the provided scripts get-labX and submit-labX. Failure to do so will break our workflow and will not be appreciated. We may deduct marks for students who do not follow this instruction.
If you accidentally break your repo by running git commands on it or edit it directly on GitHub, you should save a copy of your code elsewhere, then reset your lab directory, by (i) requesting your tutor to delete the repo on GitHub, (ii) deleting the corrupted lab directory on PE nodes, (iii) go through Steps 1 and 2 again, then copy back your edited code into the lab directory.
Grace Period
You have until Lab 2 to get familiarize with the procedure above. From Lab 3 onwards, we will not entertain requests or appeals for students who failed to follow the procedure (e.g., forgot to run the submit command, submitted the wrong lab, wrong password).
Lab Timeline
The lab assignment is released before every Thursday at 8 am, with a deadline (usually Tuesday night in the following week) given. You must submit each lab assignment before the deadline.
General Advice
You are advised to (i) spend some time thinking before you begin coding, (ii) practice incremental coding, and (iii) test your programs thoroughly.
Remember to spend some time thinking about the design and approach to solving each question.
Incremental coding means do NOT type in the whole long program in a single session and then compile it. Instead, type your program in bits and pieces and compile it incrementally. Try to maintain a compilable program even while you are working on it. Submitting a compilable program that partially works is better than submitting an un-compilable one; this is especially important for your practical exams.
You should test your program thoroughly with your test data before submission.
You may assume that all input data are correct unless otherwise stated. Hence you do NOT need to do input data validation. This is to allow you to focus on getting the program right, instead of worrying about making your program fool-proof.
Peer-Learning
We encourage students to discuss and seek help from each others and from the lab tutors if you are stuck. Piazza is a great forum for that. However, do note that while students are encouraged to discuss the approach to the solution, students are expected to write their code independently. Copy-pasting of code or coming up with the code together, line-by-line, is considered plagiarism.
All labs are designed to be completed within half a day. If you get stuck on an issue for longer than that, you should talk to others.
Late Submission
All lab assignments must be submitted on time. If you need an extension, please ask for one and provide a justification for approval. Only academic reasons and compassionate reasons can be considered (e.g., representing NUS for a sports event is OK; Attending a wedding is not.)
For late submission, there is a 1% penalty (of the total awarded marks for that particular assignment) for every 5-minute after the deadline, capped at 80%. For example, if an assignment is awarded 40 marks, and it is submitted 100 minutes after the deadline, the student will get 32 marks instead (20% penalty). If it is submitted 10 hours after the deadline, the student will get 8 marks (as it has hit the cap of 80% penalty).
Late submission is no longer accepted one week after the deadline.
Submissions with Compilation Errors
Writing code that compiles without any compilation error is the most basic requirement for all our labs and practical assessments. You will get 0 marks for the corresponding question if your code cannot be compiled.
Identifying Yourself
In every Java file that you submit, you need to identify yourself by writing your name and lab group. Marks may be deducted if you fail to do so. You need to edit the line:
1 | |
and change it to something like:
1 | |
Method of Submission
Please follow the instructions above to submit your homework. Programs submitted through other means, such as emails, will NOT be accepted.
Use of Piazza
If you have doubts about the problem statements of an assignment, you may raise them on Piazza. But before that, please read through the problem statements carefully first, and check if the same questions have been asked and answered on the forum.
Please exercise discretion when posting to Piazza. Before the deadline, you are NOT to post the solution to the assignment, complete or partial, on Piazza (or any publicly accessible online site).
Disallowed Syntax
Some lab assignments may explicitly disallow the use of certain syntax. If the objective of the assignment is undermined due to the use of forbidden syntax, the penalty will be heavy. If in doubt, please ask for clarification on Piazza.
Plagiarism
While we encourage discussions among students for programming assignments, each student should be responsible for writing his/her own code and should give credits to others when appropriate.
NUS and School of Computing have a high standard of academic honesty and take any violation seriously. In the context of computing modules, source code plagiarism -- copying code from another source and attributing it as one's own code -- is a serious violation. Please read the page Preventing Plagiarism from the school's website to familiarize yourself with the policy.
We adopt a "no mercy" policy when it comes to disciplinary action on plagiarism. Both parties, the student who copied, and the student who allowed others to copy, will be penalized equally.
This means that you should also guard your solution carefully, not posting them to publicly accessible places, or change the permissions of the files on the PE hosts so that it is accessible by others.
Copying others' programs will only offer a short-term reprieve. When Practical Exam (PE) time comes, your inadequacy will be exposed and the consequence would be dire.