Textbook
| Required Textbook | How to Design Programs (2nd edition). Felleisen, Findler, Flatt, and Krishnamruthi; MIT Press 2014. You can access the book online or buy a paper copy. |
| Recommended Textbook | Realm of Racket. Bice, Demaio, Florence, Lin, Lindeman, Nussbaum, Peterson, Plessner, Van Horn, Felleisen, and Barski; No Starch Press 2013. Available in hard copy or kindle. |
Software and Access
We will use Dr. Racket (v7.4), a programming environment for a family of programming languages. For Fundies I, we stick to the teaching languages. Download Racket to install on your own computer.
Dr. Racket runs on most popular Operating Systems (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux). Programs written in the teaching languages have mostly the same behavior on all platforms.
You also must sign up for a Khoury account. Follow these instructions to register for one. You'll use your Khoury account to submit your homework assignments via the Bottlenose server.
In London, our lab classroom is not equipped with desktop computers, so please bring your laptop to lab every week.
Piazza
Sign up for our Piazza page: piazza.com/northeastern/fall2019/cs2500london.
Piazza is an extension of our classroom discussion, and we expect everyone to behave accordingly. No disrespect, rudeness, or abuse will be tolerated -- towards fellow students or towards the course staff. Piazza will be disabled if we feel it is being misused.
You may not post your code on Piazza, but you can ask, answer, and discuss different things you've tried, what worked and didn't work, and resources you've found.
We'll also use Piazza to post course announcements, so make sure your email settings are turned on!
Communication
Piazza is the best place to ask general questions, get clarification on a homework spec, ask a follow-up from lecture, etc.Email (laneys @ northeastern.edu) is the best tool for specific questions or concerns about your experience in class, or anything sensitive in nature. During the week, I'll respond within 24 hours, but don't expect a response after 9pm. On the weekends I'll be slower to respond, but if you reach out over a weekend you can expect to hear back by Sunday evening.
Office hours are the best place for talking through your approach to a homework problem. We're not here to give you answers, of course, but to be your fellow computer scientists thinking through a tough problem with you. Expect us to ask more questions than we answer.
Homeworks and Labs
All homework assignments and lab problems will be posted on the Schedule page.You'll submit homework assignments on the Bottlenose server, which we'll cover during our first week.
You may submit homework up to 5 days late. However, a late homework loses 7 points for each full calendar day (or part of a day) that it is late after the deadline. Moreover, if you submit your homework late it will be graded with next week’s batch of assignments, so you’ll receive your score much later than if you submit on time.
Participation
You’ll notice that 15% of your grade is allocated for participation. That includes attendance in lecture and lab, as well as active participation and effort on lab assignments.
Our lab meets once a week. We will usually include some group work that must be completed, along with an individual lab assignment. The individual assignment is graded on participation and effort; submit whatever you have completed at the end of lab time.
Academic Integrity and Collaboration
While you are encouraged to discuss course materials, no plagiarism/copying is allowed on homework. In particular,
- You may not copy anyone else's code under any circumstances. This includes online sources.
- You may not permit any other student to see any part of your program.
- You may not permit yourself to see any part of another student's program.
- You may not post a public question to Piazza that contains any part of your code.
- You may consult online resources as part of your course work, but you may not copy code from online sources. If you get an idea of how to solve a problem from an online source, include a short citation in a code block at the top of your .rkt file:
'''
CS2500
HW2
MyName
Consulted online source for big-bang definitions: https://www.rackethelp.com/bigbang
'''
You do not need to include a similar notation if you consulted with a classmate; we expect that. Just don't share code.
The above policy applies only for homeworks, which are graded. You are welcome to share code for labs and practice problems. If you have a question about what is considered a violation of this policy, please ask!
The university's academic integrity policy discusses actions regarded as violations and consequences for students: http://www.northeastern.edu/osccr/academic-integrity
Exams
There are two exams during the semester, as well as a final exam. The two midterm exams will be administered during lecture. They are designed to be shorter than a full lecture period, though, as we don’t want you to feel rushed to complete it.
The final exam will be administered during the last week of classes in London.
For each exam, you may bring an 8.5x11 inch piece of paper, double sided, with anything written (or typed) on it that you want.
If you must miss an exam due to extreme, unanticipated circumstances such as an illness or a family emergency, notify me via email before the event.
Title IX
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects individuals from sex or gender-based discrimination, including discrimination based on gender-identity, in educational programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Northeastern’s Title IX Policy prohibits Prohibited Offenses, which are defined as sexual harassment, sexual assault, relationship or domestic violence, and stalking. The Title IX Policy applies to the entire community, including male, female, transgender students, faculty and staff.
If you or someone you know has been a survivor of a Prohibited Offense, confidential support and guidance can be found through University Health and Counseling Services staff (http://www.northeastern.edu/uhcs/) and the Center for Spiritual Dialogue and Service clergy members (http://www.northeastern.edu/spirituallife/). By law, those employees are not required to report allegations of sex or gender-based discrimination to the University.
Alleged violations can be reported non-confidentially to the Title IX Coordinator within The Office for Gender Equity and Compliance at: titleix@northeastern.edu Reporting Prohibited Offenses does NOT commit the victim/affected party to future legal action.
Faculty members are considered "responsible employees" at Northeastern University, meaning they are required to report all allegations of sex or gender-based discrimination to the Title IX Coordinator.
In case of an emergency, please call campus police.
Please visit http://www.northeastern.edu/titleix for a complete list of reporting options and resources both on- and off-campus.