Take-home Assessment A1: Song

Due June 29, 2021 11:59:59 pm PDT

This assessment will assess your mastery of the following objectives:

Write a functionally correct Java program to produce specified console output.
Write static, void methods to provide structure to the code and eliminate redundancy.
Write and call static methods to manage the flow of control in a program.
Follow prescribed conventions for spacing, indentation, naming methods, and header comments.

Program Behavior

You will write a Java program that produces as output a cumulative song in which successive verses build on previous verses (as described on Wikipedia). In particular, we will produce the song "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly." Your program should produce exactly the output below, except for the custom verse (see below). You can use the Mark button in Ed to check if your output is correct.

Expected Output: You must exactly match the output here, including both content and format. Check your output carefully!

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly.
I don't know why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a spider,
That wriggled and iggled and jiggled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a bird,
How absurd to swallow a bird.
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a cat,
Imagine that to swallow a cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old woman who swallowed a dog,
What a hog to swallow a dog.
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
I don't know why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

<< Your custom sixth verse goes here >>

There was an old woman who swallowed a horse,
She died of course.

Custom Verse

As indicated above, you should include a custom sixth verse that matches the pattern of the first five verses. This custom verse should be printed in place of "<< Your custom sixth vese goes here >>" in the output above. (You should not print that placeholder text.) For example, some versions of the song have a sixth verse for swallowing a goat ("Just opened her throat to swallow a goat"). Notice that the first two lines should either end in the same word (fly/fly, bird/bird, cat/cat, etc.) or should end with rhyming words (spider/inside her). You should not simply copy one of the previous animals or to use the verses you'll find on the web (e.g., goat and cow); you should write your own custom verse. The text of the verse should not include hateful, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate speech.

Implementation Guidelines

In addition to producing the desired behavior, your code should be well-written and meet all expectations described in the grading guidelines and the Code Quality Guide. For this assessment, pay particular attention to the following elements:

Capturing Structure

You should use static methods to accurately capture the structure of the song in your code. You must, for example, have a separate method for each of the seven verses of the song (verses are separated by blank lines in the output). As a result, you will not have any println statements in main except perhaps a println that produces a blank line.

This means you will have at least seven methods in your program (though you might want or need more).

In addition, you should not not have any methods that include only a single println statement. (Calls to methods like these should be replaced by the direct call to println.) All methods should capture a meanginful portion of the program that is not already captured by another method.

Avoiding Redundancy

You should also use static methods to avoid "full-line" redundancy. In particular, you must make sure that you use only one println statement for each distinct line of the song. For example, the line:

Perhaps she'll die.

appears several times in the output. To receive full credit, you must have only one println statement in your program that produces this line.

Count carefully -- the number of nonblank println calls should equal the number of unique lines in the song (including your custom lines).

On the other hand, you are not required to fix "partial-line" redundancy, as in pairs of lines like these:

There was an old woman who swallowed a horse,
There was an old woman who swallowed a dog,

or these:

She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the dog to catch the bird,

It is not possible to avoid this type of redundancy using material we have covered so far (methods and println statements), so you are not expected to do so.

Permitted Java Features

You should not use any Java features that we have not covered in class. For this assessment, you should limit yourself to the Java features covered in chapter 1 of the textbook. You should also not use System.out.print() statements even though they are covered in chapter 1. All output (including the last line) should be produced using System.out.println(). You also may not use the \n escape sequence.

Code Quality

In addition to producing the desired behavior, your code should be well-written and meet all expectations described in the general rubric and the Code Quality Guide. For this assessment, pay particular attention to the following elements:

Indentation & Whitespace

Your program should be properly indented and have properly spaced methods as shown in class and discussed in the Code Quality Guide

Commenting

You should include a comment at the beginning of your program with some basic identifying information and a description of the program. More details can be found in the Code Quality Guide about how to properly format and write this. Your program description should be specific to this assessment, but not include any implementation details.

Your code should also include a comment at the beginning of each method that describes that methods behavior. See the Code Quality Guide for more information.

Running and Submitting

You should write your program in a file named Song.java and submit it in Ed. You can run your program by clicking the "Run" button in Ed. This will compile and execute your code and show you any errors, or the output of your program if it runs correctly. If you believe your output is correct, you can submit your work by clicking the "Mark" button in the Ed assessment. You will see the results of some automated tests. These tests are not fully indicative of the grade you will receive on this assessment, and your grade on this assessment is not final until you have received feedback from your TA.

You may submit your work as often as you like until the deadline; we will always grade your most recent submission before the deadline. Note the due date and time carefully -- work submitted after the due time will not be accepted.

Getting Help

If you find you are struggling with this assessment, make use of all the course resources that are available to you, such as:

Reviewing relevant examples from lectures, section, and lab
Reading the textbook
Visiting support hours
Posting a question on the message board

Collaboration Policy

Reflection

In addition to your code, you must submit answers to short reflection questions. These questions will help you think about what you learned, what you struggled with, and how you can improve next time. The questions are in the Reflection slide in the Ed assessment.