This is the part of the site where the rules need to be laid down.  If a policy of your school or SCROC contradicts any portion of this, the rule of the school or SCROC will be final word. 
    As a rule, I want this class to work much like a college or university course, given that the material is of that caliber.  As such, I will, whenever possible, treat the students as adults.  The primary exception is that attendance is mandatory and I will take role every class without exception. 
    Much of this class is possible to do at home, and as such plagiarism is in no way acceptable.  Any instance of plagiarism will be prosecuted as strongly as possible as the rules of SCROC and/or the school will allow.  If you use another's work in your own work you must clearly denote it as such.  Many of you will become computer programmers and as such your livelihood may well depend on others respecting your intellectual property rights.  It is not unreasonable for you to respect the intellectual property rights of others.  This also applies to copying code from other students in the class or the teacher in any unauthorized manner.  I will make it quite clear whenever it is fair to either copy existing code or derive new code based upon existing code.  Indeed, much of this class will require this. 
    Given that much of this class will take place in a lab, it will be quite easy to be distracted.  It is your responsibility to pay attention to lectures.  Failure to hear something in class is not a valid excuse for anything.  In cases of a guest speaker or a fellow student, you must pay attention, and I always reserve all abilities I have to enforce this.
    Code handed in must be written in a manner consistent with the coding standards laid out in the text and the course.  That means that the code must be formatted in a logical manner, with indentations where appropriate, logical and meaningful variable and method names and so forth.  Most importantly you must provide adequate documentation for your program, meaning it must be well commented.  That does not mean that every line must be commented, but it does mean that pre and post-conditions must exist for methods, and that any code that is in any way ambiguous or tricky, must be commented.  In addition, unless extraordinary circumstances exist, no method should exceed 20 lines of code.  (comments do not count as lines of code in this situation)  I reserve the right to grade down or not accept assignments that do not meet these criteria.  On the advanced placement exam, the code readers will get a ridiculously short amount of time to look at your code (and it will be hand-written!?!?!) so you have to be in practice to make it as easy as possible on the people who will determine your AP score... not to mention being nice on your teacher who decides your grade...
    Assignments are due on the date specified unless I make an announcement either on this website and/or in class otherwise.  Late assignments may or may not be accepted depending on the particular situation.  If you know something will be in late, it is highly advisable to contact me as early as physically possible to try to ensure that it will be accepted.  I reserve the right to accept late assignments for a reduced number of points if I deem appropriate.

More material will be added throughout the semester and everything on here is subject to change.

last updated on 9/16/03
Copyright (C) 2003 Jim Casaburi