CS471 Homework Submission Instructions

I'm Elliot, and I have 2 main objectives in grading your homework:
Please, if you're not sure about formatting and you don't want to just ask me, try not to break one of these objectives.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask: eway1@binghamton.edu

All files should be plain text ascii.

Formatted text files are NOT PERMITTED. Please no .doc, .udt, .pdf, .rtf.
Any submitted files should either by plain text, e.g. hw1.txt, or source code, e.g. hw1.c, hw1.py, hw1.pl, hw1.pl, etc.

If there's something about your assignment that isn't clear, I appreciate readme files. Please name these README.txt or README.

How to Submit

YOUR SUBMISSION MUST USE THIS FORMAT: eway1_hw1.tar.gz

Please use tar to compress a directory containing all of your files to create your submission. Please pass the -z flag to tar to use gzip as well. The command to create a .tar.gz file is
tar -czvf eway1_hw1.tar.gz hw1
Where 'hw1' should be the name of the directory that contains your files. You can make sure the .tar.gz file contains the files you intended with
tar -tzf eway1_hw1.tar.gz
This assumes you're on a Linux machine, no guarantees with Mac, and if you insist on using Windows, you can probably use 7zip.

The name of your submission MUST INCLUDE YOUR USERNAME.
That is, the user name you use to log into bmail, or to log into any of the campus machines, mine is eway1.
When I download your assignments, myCourses doesn't tell me who submitted what, so this is CRITICAL.
Once you have your name_hwN.tar.gz file, upload it to Blackboard: there will be an assignment listed there, where you can attach your .tar.gz file as an attachment.

Answer Format

There are 2 types of homeworks assignments in this class: programming assignments, and text assignments.

Text assignments should have one main text file (in plain text!), and possibly other source files.
Text assignments should look something like this:

YOUR NAME
CS471 Assignment N
1.
(Your answer to question 1, and/or the name of another file with your answer.)


2.
(Your answer to question 2, and/or the name of another file with your answer.)
For programming assignments, the assignment description itself will contain space for your answers. You should write your coded solutions in the provided space.
If the question on a programming assignment asks a question, you can write the answer in a comment.
Programming assignments should look something like this, the parts you need to write are starred:

#YOUR NAME ***
#CS471 Assignment N ***

# Preamble about this assignment.

# Question 1
# [Full description of question 1.]
# Answer here:
(Put your answer for question 1 here.) ***
#(Answer any questions posed by the question in comments.) ***
Otherwise, please clearly indicate which question you're answering, e.g.

I may take off points for bad formatting.

The points I take off will be proportional to how difficult it is for me to grade your assignment.
Needing to do extra work also puts me in a bad mood and you risk me grading harsher, though I try not to do that.

Reminder: lab attendance is required

Sometimes I realize something about the homework isn't clear, then explain it in the lab.
Also, mistakes inevitably creep into the homeworks, which might also be clarified in the lab.
It's not my fault if I explain something important in the lab, but you weren't there.
I'll try to update the assignment description if I can, but sometimes it takes a little while to post the new version.

Late Homeworks

Each day an assignment is late you'll receive a 10% penalty.
After day 5, it will take a while longer to get feedback because I'll need to move on to the next assignment.
It's still worth submitting late, though, even past 10 days: you risk failing the course if you skip too many homeworks.