Homework

Homework

Get an account!

If you do not have an account on the Pomona College Computer Science network, please go to https://www.dci.pomona.edu/ immediately to request an account. Otherwise you will not be able to turn in your homework!

It will take several days for your account to be set up and you will need to pick up your password from our Systems Administrator (Matt Bradley) in person so don't delay!

Turning in Homework

All homework should be turned in via the web page at http://www.dci.pomona.edu/tools-bin/cs081upload.php. If you have more than one file for an assignment, please put all associated files in a directory, zip up the directory, and then turn in the zipped directory.

Homework solutions can be turned in either as plain text or pdf (preferably generated by LaTeX). If you would prefer to write your solutions by hand, you may scan them in to obtain electronic copies. (There is a scanner in the small room between the two CS labs in Edmunds.) However, you must ensure that the results are easily readable, otherwise you will receive no credit. To make it easier for you to LaTeX your solutions, I will post the original LaTeX of the assignment. Because using LaTeX is a very valuable skill and you will need it for several items in the course of a CS major, we strongly recommend that you bite the bullet and learn LaTeX. The TeXShop application installed in the Pomona CS labs is a pretty supportive environment for running this.

Several people have found the program JFLAP to be useful in testing the design of programs for automata and Turing machines, as well as in creating diagrams for homework solutions. You can read about JFLAP and download the program for free from http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/jflap/.

All items turned in must have your name on them, as we will normally be looking at printouts, and will not know to whom to give credit if there are no names printed.

An important criterion in grading homework will be clarity of solution. Thus you should attempt to explain your solutions as clearly as possible. This is especially important for proofs, as we already know the result is true. We are looking to see if you can formulate a complete and correct proof.

Late policy

Except for the first and last weeks of the term, homework will be due at midnight on Thursday nights each week classes are in session. Each student may use a maximum of three late days during the course of the semester (note that weekend days count). These are intended to be used for illness or unexpected emergencies, rather than to make up for a late start on your homework. Once those late days are used up, late homework will not be accepted unless there is an extended unexpected emergency (e.g., hospitalization, death in the family, etc.).

Homework