CS 331 and Python

 

To encourage you to practice coding (usng the CodingBat site), the following policy will be used to award credit for CS 331.

The basic rules

  1. Create a CodingBat account and edit the Preferences so that your name matches the suggestion and you share with "dlevine@sbu.edu" as your instructor.
  2. Solve as many Python problems as you like on the CodingBat site each week.
  3. When you have solved three problems in a category, you will earn a star for that category.
  4. Send me an email telling me which three problems you solved.  Upon verification that you have earned a star, you will earn one-half bonus point towards your final average.  Email messages must be sent before noon on Monday to earn credit for that week.
  5. Emails for each week should have a subject line that includes the words "PythonBat - Week X" where X is replaced by the week number.  September 9 is "Week 1".
  1. Problems must be solved individually. 
  2. Problems which have solutions at the site (from Sections Warmup-1 or Warmup-2) do not count towards any extra credit.
  3. You may not "re-solve" any problem to earn credit, but you may solve some "in advance".  (You must sent a separate email for each set of three.)
  4. At most one stars can be earned in each category over the course of the semester (at least as far as extra credit goes - you can earn all the ones you want for your own benefit). 
  5. You may not use outside resources (such as friends/tutors and/or the Internet) to help you solve the problems.  I reserve the right to withhold the credit if I believe that I have evidence that this has happened.  I will discuss this with you before doing so.

The "big bonus"

  1. If you earn a check mark for a problem with a solution that is actually incorrect, i.e. the solution is flawed, but the site did not detect this, you earn a "triple bonus".  (Note: your solution cannot involve hardcoding inputs; it must be a "legitimate" attempt at the problem.) 
  2. If you tell me about it (as opposed to my noticing), you earn a "quintuple bonus" instead.

(This has happened at least three times with Java programs; I have personally reported each such incident to Nick and he fixed the test data.  But I suspect that other cases exist - albeit not in the simplest problems.)